LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
RIVERSIDE 


A  STUDY 
OF  VERSIFICATION 


BY 

BRANDER   MATTHEWS 
«*  \ 

PROFESSOR.  IN  COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY 

MEMBER   OF   THE  AMERICAN  ACADEMY  OF 

ARTS  AND   LETTERS 


HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

BOSTON     •      NEW  YORK      •      CHICAGO     •      DALLAS 

BAN  FRANCISCO 
Cije  i-viuersiijc  $tcfi55  Cambrilige 


MV1 


COPYRIGHT,  IQII,  BY  BRANDER  MATTHEWS 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
PRINTED  IN  THB  U.S.A 


TO 

W.  C.  BROWNELL 

CRITIC  OF  POETS  AND, 

PROSE-MASTERS 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

IT  is  now  about  thirty  years  since  I  prepared  an 
American  edition  of  a  little  book  by  the  younger  Tom 
Hood,  which  purported  to  set  forth  the  rules  of  rime 
(the  "  Rhymester,"  Appleton  &  Co.,  1882)  ;  and  it 
is  just  twenty  years  since  I  first  gave  a  course  in 
metrical  rhetoric  to  a  class  of  undergraduates  in 
Columbia  College.  And  I  have  long  felt  the  need  of 
a  simple  text-book  for  the  beginner,  which  would 
serve  as  an  introduction  to  the  study  of  English  versi- 
fication. There  are  many  volumes  devoted  to  the 
analysis  of  poetry,  but  there  are  few  which  confine 
themselves  wholly  to  the  problems  of  prosody;  and 
scarcely  any  one  of  these  is  exactly  adapted  to  the 
needs  of  the  novice  who  knows  little  or  nothing 
about  the  principles  of  the  metrical  art.  The  subject 
is  treated  casually  and  cursorily  in  many  grammars 
and  in  many  rhetorics ;  but  the  main  purpose  of  these 
books  is  to  help  the  student  to  express  himself  accu- 
rately and  satisfactorily  in  prose. 

This  is  the  simple  text-book  for  the  beginner  that  I 
have  undertaken  in  the  present  volume.  It  is  a  text-book 
of  metrical  rhetoric.  Its  aim  is  to  explain  to  the  inquirer 
the  technic  of  verse-making  and  to  show  him  how  the 
poets  have  been  able  to  achieve  their  effects.  It  seta 
forth  what  I  believe  to  be  the  fundamental  principle 
of  the  art,  —  that  all  poetry  is  to  be  said  or  sung,  and 
that  its  appeal  is  to  the  ear  and  not  to  the  eye.  This 


vi  PREFATORY   NOTE 

principle  is  here  asserted,  unhesitatingly  ;  and  from  it 
all  the  practices  of  modern  English  versification  are 
here  derived.  No  other  principle  is  even  discussed, 
and  all  controversy  has  been  rigorously  eschewed. 
The  student  will  not  be  confused  by  any  attempt  to 
refute  any  other  theory;  and  his  time  will  not  be 
wasted  by  the  confutation  of  any  code  long  ago  dises- 
tablished. 

The  main  object  of  this  book  is  to  provide  the  stu- 
dent with  an  understanding  of  the  mechanism  of  verse, 
that  he  may  have  a  richer  appreciation  of  poetry. 
The  metrical  mastery  of  Chaucer  and  of  Milton,  of 
Pope  and  of  Tennyson,  will  be  more  keenly  relished 
by  the  lover  of  poetry  when  he  has  attained  to  an 
insight  into  the  methods  whereby  this  mastery  was 
achieved.  But  while  this  is  its  primary  intent,  the 
book  has  also  a  secondary  purpose,  to  encourage 
teachers  to  give  courses  in  metrical  rhetoric, — not  with 
any  vain  hope  that  they  will  be  able  to  train  poets, 
but  with  the  firm  belief  that  exercise  in  verse  is  the 
best  possible  aid  to  easy  flexibility  in  prose-writing. 
Verse-making  is  an  admirable  gymnastic;  and  the 
necessity  of  mating  his  words  in  rime  and  of  adjust- 
ing them  to  rhythm  enriches  the  student's  vocabulary 
and  increases  his  control  over  it.  Constant  practice  in 
composing  in  stanzas  prescribed  by  the  instructor  will 
not  tend  to  puff  up  the  young  writer  with  the  conceit 
that  he  is  a  poet.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  likely  to  take 
down  his  vanity  by  showing  him  how  easy  it  is  to 
acquire  the  elements  of  verse-making  and  by  calling 
his  attention  to  the  technical  dexterity  possessed  by 
the  great  craftsmen  in  verse.  Indeed,  there  is  no 
better  corrective  of  undue  pride,  there  is  no  more 


PREFATORY   NOTE  vii 

potent  inciter  of  modesty,  than  the  frequent  attempt 
to  pattern  ourselves  on  the  masters  and  to  discover 
how  lamentably  we  fall  short  of  our  lofty  and  unap- 
proachable models, 

B.  M. 

COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 
IN  THE  CITY  OF  NEW  YORE. 


CONTENTS 

I.  THE  STUDY  OF  VERSE  ......  1 

II.  RHYTHM 8 

III.  METER 31 

IV.  RIME 49 

V.  TONE-COLOB 73 

VI.  THE  STANZA 102 

VII.  THE  SONNET 126 

VIII.  OTHER  FIXED  FORMS         .....      144 

IX.  RIMELESS  STANZAS 176 

X.  THE  COUPLET 200 

XI.  BLANK  VERSE 225 

XII.  POETIC  LICENSE  .......      244 

APPENDIX 

A:  SUGGESTIONS  FOR  STUDY    ....  263 

B:  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  SUGGESTIONS  ...   266 

INDEX  .   .          .  269 


A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 


CHAPTER  I 

THE   STUDY    OF   VERSE 

As  logic  does  not  supply  yon  with  arguments,  but  only  defines  the 
mode  in  which  they  are  to  be  expressed  or  used,  so  versification  does  not 
teach  you  how  to  write  poetry,  but  how  to  construct  verse.  It  may  be 
a  means  to  the  end,  but  it  does  not  pretend  to  assure  its  attainment. 
Versification  and  logic  are  to  poetry  and  reason  what  a  parapet  is  to 
a  bridge  :  they  do  not  convey  you  across,  but  prevent  you  from  falling 
over.  —  TOM  HOOD  :  The  Rules  of  Rhyme. 

THIS  is  not  a  handbook  of  poetics ;  and  its  aim  is  not 
to  consider  the  several  departments  of  poetry,  —  epic 
and  lyric  and  dramatic.  It  does  not  deal  with  simile  and 
metaphor,  nor  does  it  seek  to  open  the  mind  of  the 
student  to  the  nobler  beauties  of  poetry.  It  is  intended 
to  be  an  introduction  to  the  study  of  versification,  of 
the  metrical  mechanism  which  sustains  poetry,  and 
which  differentiates  poetry  from  prose. 

It  is  devoted  solely  to  the  technic  of  the  art  of 
verse.  It  is  an  examination  of  the  tools  of  the  poet's 
trade.  Although  poets  are  said  to  be  born  and  not 
made,  there  is  no  doubt  that  they  have  to  be  made 
after  they  are  born.  It  is  not  a  fact  that  the  born  poet 
warbles  native  wood-notes  wild  ;  he  has  to  serve  an  ap- 
prenticeship to  his  craft ;  he  has  to  acquire  the  art  of 
verse ;  he  has  to  master  its  technic  and  to  spy  out  its 
secrets.  The  poet  is  like  the  painter,  who,  as  Sir 


2  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Joshua  Reynolds  declared,  "  is  a  painter  only  as  he 
can  put  in  practice  what  he  knows,  and  communicate 
those  ideas  by  visible  representation." 

In  his  ignorance,  the  layman  may  be  led  to  despise 
technic ;  but  this  is  a  blunder  of  which  the  true  artist 
is  never  guilty.  Indeed,  the  true  artist  cherishes  tech- 
nic ;  he  is  forever  thinking  about  it  and  enlarging  his 
knowledge  of  it.  He  delights  in  discussing  its  prob- 
lems ;  and  when  he  is  moved  to  talk  about  his  art, 
technic  is  ever  the  theme  of  his  discourse.  The  trea- 
tises on  painting,  for  example,  written  by  painters,  by 
Reynolds  or  by  La  Farge,  are  full  of  technical  criti- 
cism ;  and  so  are  the  essays  on  poetry,  written  by  the 
poets  themselves.  The  processes  of  their  art  are  con- 
sidered with  unfailing  zest  by  Pope  and  Wordsworth, 
by  Coleridge  and  Poe.  In  fact,  the  artists  are  all  aware 
that  technic  is  almost  the  only  aspect  of  their  art 
which  can  be  discussed  profitably ;  and  every  layman 
can  see  that  it  is  the  only  aspect  which  the  artists 
often  care  to  talk  about.  The  other  part,  no  doubt 
the  loftier  part,  the  poet's  message  to  humanity,  — 
this  is  too  ethereal,  perhaps  too  personal,  too  intimate, 
too  sacred,  to  bear  debate. 

Every  work  of  art  can  be  considered  from  two 
points  of  view.  It  has  its  content  and  it  has  its  form. 
We  may  prefer  to  pay  attention  to  what  the  artist  has 
to  say,  or  we  may  examine  rather  how  he  says  it.  The 
content  of  his  work,  what  he  has  to  say  to  us,  is  the 
more  important,  of  course,  but  this  must  depend  on 
his  native  gift,  on  his  endowment ;  and  it  is  more  or 
less  beyond  his  control.  He  utters  what  he  must  utter ; 
and  he  voices  what  he  is  inspired  to  deliver.  But  the 
form  in  which  he  clothes  this  message,  how  he  says 


THE  STUDY  OF  VERSE  3 

what  he  has  to  say,  —  this  is  what  he  may  choose  to 
make  it,  no  more  and  no  less.  This  depends  on  him 
and  on  him  alone  ;  it  is  not  a  gift  but  an  acquisition ; 
it  is  the  result  of  his  skill,  of  the  trouble  he  is  willing 
to  take,  of  his  artistic  integrity,  of  his  desire  to  do  his 
best  always,  and  never  to  quit  his  work  until  he  has 
made  it  as  perfect  as  he  can. 

This  technical  dexterity  can  be  had  for  the  asking ; 
—  or,  at  least,  it  can  be  bought  with  a  price.  It  is  the 
reward  of  intense  interest,  of  incessant  curiosity,  of 
honest  labor.  And  it  is  worth  all  that  it  costs,  since 
we  cannot  really  separate  form  and  content,  as  we  some- 
times vainly  imagine.  What  the  poet  has  to  say  is  in- 
extricably intertwined  with  the  way  in  which  he  saya 
it,  and  our  appreciation  of  his  ultimate  message  is  en- 
hanced by  our  delight  in  his  method  of  presenting  it. 
In  fact,  our  pleasure  in  his  work  is  often  due  quite  as 
much  to  the  sheer  artistry  of  his  presentation  as  it  is 
to  the  actual  value  of  his  thought  and  of  his  emotion. 
We  might  even  go  further  and  venture  the  assertion 
that  it  is  by  style  alone  that  the  poet  survives,  since 
his  native  gift  profits  him  little  unless  he  so  presents 
his  message  that  we  cannot  choose  but  hear.  And,  as 
Professor  Bradley  declared  in  one  of  his  "Oxford 
Lectures  on  Poetry,"  "  when  poetry  answers  to  its 
idea. and  is  purely  or  almost  purely  poetic,  we  find  the 
identity  of  form  and  content,  and  the  degree  of  purity 
may  be  tested  by  the  degree  in  which  we  feel  it  hope- 
less to  convey  the  effect  of  a  poem  or  passage  in  any 
form  but  its  own." 

There  is  benefit,  therefore,  for  all  of  us  in  an  en- 
deavor to  understand  the  mechanism  of  the  poet's  art, 
to  gain  an  elementary  acquaintance  with  its  processes, 


4  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

to  learn  as  much  as  we  may  about  its  delightful  mys- 
teries, —  just  as  we  must  acquire  a  certain  acquaint- 
ance with  the  conditions  of  building  before  we  can 
gain  a  real  insight  into  the  beauty  of  architecture. 
This  knowledge  will  increase  our  enjoyment  of  poetry, 
for  it  will  give  us  a  twofold  interest,  in  the  manner 
as  well  as  in  the  matter.  The  more  we  know  about 
versification,  the  better  equipped  we  are  to  perceive  the 
skill  with  which  the  poet  has  wrought  his  marvels 
and  also  to  feel  deeply  his  charm  and  his  power.  The 
more  we  know,  the  better  we  shall  understand  the  real 
nature  of  poetic  inspiration.  "  It  is  very  natural,"  so 
Reynolds  declared  in  another  of  his  "  Discourses  on 
Painting,"  "  for  those  who  are  unacquainted  with  the 
cause  of  anything  extraordinary  to  be  astonished  at 
the  effect,  and  to  consider  it  as  a  kind  of  magic.  They 
who  have  never  observed  the  gradation  by  which  art 
is  acquired,  who  see  only  what  is  the  full  result  of  long 
labor  and  application  of  an  infinite  number  and  in- 
finite variety  of  acts,  are  apt  to  conclude,  from  their 
entire  inability  to  do  the  same  at  once,  that  it  is  not 
only  inaccessible  to  themselves,  but  can  be  done  by 
those  only  who  have  some  gift  of  the  nature  of  in- 
spiration bestowed  upon  them." 

This  book  is  intended,  not  so  much  for  those  who 
may  desire  to  write  verse,  as  it  is  for  those  who  wish 
to  gain  an  insight  into  the  methods  of  the  poets  that 
they  may  have  a  keener  and  a  deeper  appreciation  of 
poetry ;  and  yet  its  suggestions  are  available  also  for 
those  who  may  feel  themselves  moved  to  speak  in  num- 
bers. Attention  may  be  called  to  the  fact  that  it  never 
pretends  to  declare  how  verse  ought  to  be  written ; 
all  that  it  endeavors  to  do  is  to  show  how  verse  has 


THE  STUDY  OF  VERSE  5 

been  written  by  the  poets  who  have  enriched  our  litera- 
ture. If  any  laws  emerge  into  view,  these  are  the  re- 
sult of  a  modest  attempt  to  codify  the  practice  of  the 
poets  themselves  and  to  deduce  the  underlying  princi- 
ples. It  is  never  the  privilege  of  the  critic  to  lay  down 
arbitrary  rules  for  any  art;  it  is  his  duty  to  examine 
what  the  great  artists  have  given  us,  and  to  discover, 
if  he  can,  the  subtle  means  whereby  they  achieved 
their  masterpieces.  And  it  is  a  humble  examination 
of  this  kind  which  is  undertaken  in  this  inquiry. 

As  this  is  the  main  object  of  the  present  volume, 
the  reader  must  not  expect  to  find  here  things  not 
germane  to  this  intent.  He  will  not  have  his  attention 
distracted  by  any  investigation  into  the  origins  of 
English  verse.  He  will  not  be  called  upon  to  consider 
the  conflicting  theories  of  English  prosody.  He  will 
not  be  confused  by  constant  references  to  the  very  dif- 
ferent metrical  system  which  was  employed  by  the 
Greek  and  the  Latin  poets.  These  things  are  discussed 
at  length  in  many  other  books ;  and  in  this  book  they 
would  be  out  of  place.  To  consider  them  in  these 
pages  would  interfere  with  the  main  purpose  of  the 
present  volume,  which  is  to  provide  the  lover  of  poetry 
with  an  elementary  knowledge  of  the  principles  that 
govern  modern  English  versification. 

Exact  definition  tends  to  precision  of  thought ;  and 
an  acquaintance  with  technical  terms  is  necessary  to 
any  scientific  investigation.  As  Professor  Mayor  has 
declared,  "  the  use  of  Prosody  is  to  supply  a  technical 
language  by  which  each  specimen  of  verse  is  brought 
before  us ;  to  distinguish  the  different  kinds  of  verse, 
to  establish  a  type  of  each,  by  reference  to  which  ex- 
isting varieties  may  be  compared ;  and,  finally,  to 


6  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

state  the  laws  of  composition  which  have  been  ob- 
served by  those  whom  the  world  recognizes  as  poets. 
Then  from  this  we  may  draw  practical  rules  of  art  for 
the  poet  or  the  reader." 

An  acquaintance  with  the  technical  terms,  a  know- 
ledge of  the  rules  of  the  art,  will  not  suffice  to  make  any 
one  of  us  a  poet.  But  an  ignorance  of  the  underlying 
principles  of  verse  will  prevent  now  any  one,  how- 
ever gifted  by  nature,  from  attaining  eminence  as  a 
poet.  The  earlier  verse-writers  had  to  work  by  instinct 
only  at  first,  guided  by  their  intuitive  feeling  for 
rhythm  ;  in  time  their  successors  had  the  solid  support 
of  tradition ;  and  to-day  every  poet  can  profit  by  a  study 
of  the  means  whereby  his  great  predecessors  wrought 
their  marvels.  No  doubt,  delicacy  of  ear  still  guides 
him  more  securely  than  any  rule  of  thumb ;  and  yet 
he  will  find  assistance  in  a  knowledge  of  the  science 
of  verse  which  underlies  the  art  of  poetry.  Appren- 
tice poets  may  now  find  this  science  set  forth  more 
or  less  accurately  in  the  treatises  of  the  critics,  or  they 
may  absorb  it  for  themselves  by  reverent  study  of  the 
great  masters  of  verse. 

It  is  true  that  versification  is  only  the  carved  vase 
which  holds  the  precious  wine  of  poetry ;  and  yet  with- 
out the  vase  the  wine  would  be  spilled  and  wasted. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  vase  itself  stands  empty  unless 
the  poet  has  within  himself  that  which  will  fill  it 
worthily.  Amiel  asserted  that  the  group  of  French 
poets  in  the  nineteenth  century  who  were  known  as  the 
Parnassians  "  sculptured  urns  of  agate  and  of  onyx ; 
but  what  do  these  urns  contain  ?  Ashes ! "  Yet  the 
blunder  of  these  Parnassians  was  not  in  the  curious 
care  with  which  they  carved  their  urns  of  agate  and 


THE  STUDY  OF  VERSE  7 

of  onyx ;  it  was  in  their  failure  to  fill  the  urns  with 
an  elixir  worthy  of  receptacles  thus  adorned.  It  was 
their  fault  or  their  misfortune  that  they  had  nothing 
better  than  ashes  to  pour  into  their  urns. 

Still,  after  all,  the  urns  themselves  had  their  own 
beauty.  Every  lover  of  poetry  could  cite  numberless 
lyrics  which  delight  him  by  their  art  alone,  by  their 
melody,  by  their  merely  external  fascination,  without 
regard  to  their  content,  to  their  ultimate  meaning.  In- 
deed, there  are  not  a  few  lovely  lyrics  in  our  language 
the  meaning  of  which  is  doubtful  or  even  vague  and 
intangible.  They  charm  our  ears  with  their  music, 
even  if  they  fail  to  appeal  to  our  intellect.  They  live 
by  melody,  and  almost  by  melody  alone.  And  if  this  is 
a  fact,  surely  it  is  well  worth  our  while  to  seek  for  an 
understanding  of  the  principles  of  an  art  which  can 
work  these  marvels. 

If  there  are  a  few  lyrics  which  survive  by  form 
rather  than  by  content,  none  the  less  is  it  true  that 
hi  poetry  form  and  content  are  inseparable ;  and 
poetry  demands  for  its  full  appreciation  an  under- 
standing of  versification.  Indeed,  Professor  Bradley 
does  not  go  too  far  when  he  asserts  that  "  the  value 
of  versification,  when  it  is  indissolubly  fused  with 
meaning,  can  hardly  be  exaggerated.  The  gift  for 
feeling  it,  even  more  perhaps  than  the  gift  for  feeling 
the  value  of  style,  is  the  specific  gift  for  poetry,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  other  arts."  And  Leigh  Hunt  went 
even  further,  for  he  insisted  that  "  versification  itself 
becomes  part  of  the  sentiment  of  a  poem.  ...  I  know 
of  no  very  fine  versification  unaccompanied  with  fine 
poetry ;  no  poetry  of  a  mean  order  accompanied  with 
verse  of  the  highest." 


CHAPTER  H 

RHYTHM 

Our  new  empiricism,  following1  where  intuition  leads  the  way,  com- 
prehends the  functions  of  vibrations :  it  perceives  that  every  movement 
of  matter,  seized  upon  by  universal  force,  is  vibratory ;  that  vibrations, 
and  nothing  else,  convey  through  the  body  the  look  and  voice  of  na- 
ture to  the  soul ;  that  thus  alone  can  one  incarnate  individuality  ad- 
dress its  fellow;  that,  to  use  old  Bunyan's  imagery,  these  vibrations 
knock  at  the  ear-gate,  and  are  visible  to  the  eye-gate,  and  are  sentient 
at  the  gates  of  touch  of  the  living  temple.  The  word  describing  their 
action  is  in  evidence ;  they  ' '  thrill ' '  the  body,  they  thrill  the  soul, 
both  of  which  respond  with  subjective,  interblending  vibrations,  ac- 
cording to  the  keys,  the  wave-lengths  of  their  excitants.  —  EDMUKD 
CLARENCE  STEDMAN  :  The  Nature  and  Elements  of  Poetry. 

IN  any  consideration  of  versification,  we  need  to  begin 
by  reminding  ourselves  that  poetry  is  always  intended 
to  be  said  or  sung.  Its  appeal  is  primarily  to  the  ear 
and  only  secondarily  to  the  eye.  At  first,  poetry  was 
certainly  sung,  because  it  came  into  being  long  before 
the  invention  of  the  art  of  writing.  After  a  while, 
poetry  was  both  said  and  sung ;  it  was  recited,  either 
with  or  without  the  accompaniment  of  music.  Only 
after  long  centuries,  during  which  it  survived  on  the 
tongue  and  in  the  ear,  was  it  written  down  to  reach 
the  eye  also.  "  To  pass  from  hearing  literature  to  read- 
ing it  is  to  take  a  great  and  dangerous  step,"  said 
Stevenson  ;  "  with  not  a  few,  I  think,  a  large  propor- 
tion of  their  pleasure  then  comes  to  an  end,  .  .  .  they 
read  thenceforward  by  the  eye  alone  and  hear  never 
again  the  chime  of  fair  words  or  the  march  of  the 
stately  syllable."  Even  now,  the  real  approach  of 


RHYTHM  9 

poetry  to  the  soul  of  man  is  through  his  ears ;  and 
we  do  not  feel  its  full  force  until  we  speak  it  our- 
selves or  hear  it  from  others.  It  might  almost  be  as- 
serted that  poetry  is  like  music,  in  which  the  notation 
in  black  and  white  is  only  a  device  to  preserve  it  and 
to  transmit  it ;  and  that  like  music,  poetry  does  not 
fully  exist  until  it  is  heard.  As  a  result  of  this  re- 
semblance to  music,  poetry  is  likely  to  lose  something 
of  its  power  when  the  poet  thinks  rather  of  his  readers 
than  of  his  hearers. 

Therefore,  the  true  principles  of  versification  can 
be  seized  only  when  we  keep  this  fact  always  in  mind, 
that  the  poet  has  intended  his  lines  to  be  heard  by 
the  ear,  to  be  spoken  or  chanted  or  sung  by  one  for 
the  pleasure  of  others.  His  verses,  lyric  or  dramatic 
as  they  may  be,  are  meant  to  be  spoken  and  so  they 
must  adjust  themselves  to  the  vocal  organs  of  man ; 
and  they  are  meant  to  be  heard  and  so  they  must  be 
measured  to  the  capacity  of  the  human  ear.  Indeed, 
nearly  all  the  elements  of  the  art  of  versification  are 
the  direct  result  of  this  condition  of  oral  delivery. 

The  most  important  of  these  elements  is  rhythm. 
All  nature  is  rhythmic.  The  tides  rise  and  fall ;  day , 
follows  night ;  and  the  seasons  recur  one  after  the 
other,  year  by  year.  Human  nature  is  rhythmic  also ; 
and  emotion,  which  is  the  subject-matter  of  poetry, 
tends  always  to  express  itself  rhythmically.  Passionate 
language  has  its  marked  beats.  Primitive  man  casts 
his  war-songs  and  his  love-songs  into  a  rude  but  em- 
phatic rhythm.  The  wail  of  the  tribe  over  its  dead  is 
rhythmic  ;  and  so  is  the  crooning  of  the  mother  over 
her  babe  in  the  cradle  by  her  side.  The  chant  of  tri- 
umph has  its  rise  and  fall.  In  all  these  examples,  the 


10  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

character  of  the  rhythm  may  be  open  to  question , 
but  the  existence  of  the  rhythm  itself  is  beyond  dis- 
pute. Lowell  singled  out  for  praise  the  song  of  De- 
borah and  Barak :  "  Awake,  awake,  Deborah ! 
Awake,  awake,  utter  a  song !  Arise,  Barak,  and  lead 
thy  captivity  captive,  thou  son  of  Abinoam !  " 

This  rhythmic  utterance  in  moments  of  poignant 
emotion  is  spontaneous  even  to-day  in  our  children. 
A  few  years  ago  the  young  daughter  of  a  friend  of 
mine  was  stricken  to  the  heart  by  the  crushing  of 
a  cherished  doll  under  a  rocking-chair.  When  the 
mother  returned  she  found  the  little  girl  so  pitiful 
and  pathetic  that  she  took  the  child  in  her  arms  and 
asked  what  had  happened.  And  then  the  little 
daughter  broke  out  in  this  lament :  — 

My  dolly  is  dead  !  My  dolly  is  dead  ! 

I  loved  my  dolly,  and  I  did  n't  want  her  to  die  ! 

But  she  died,  and  I  buried  her. 

And  I  wanted  to  bury  her 

In  the  worst  place  I  could  find  ; 

So  I  looked  all  over  the  flat 

For  the  very  worst  place  I  could  find. 

And  I  buried  her  in  the  pail  — 

In  the  pail  under  the  sink  in  the  kitchen, 

In  the  pail  where  we  put  the  old  dinners 

And  the  old  breakfasts  and  my  crusts  when  I  won't 

eat  'em  : 

And  I  buried  her  there. 
It  was  the  very  worst  place  I  could  find. 
I  buried  her  on  top  of  the  dinner 
And  under  the  breakfast, 

And  there  's  oatmeal  where  her  head  ought  to  be. 
And  Annie  will  put  her  on  the  dumbwaiter, 
And  she  '11  send  her  down  to  the  janitor, 
And  the  janitor  will  put  her  into  the  barrel, 
And  he  '11  put  the  barrel  out  on  the  sidewalk  ; 


RHYTHM  11 

And  the  man  will  come  along  with  the  wagon, 
And  he  '11  empty  her  into  the  wagon, 
And  he  '11  drive  her  down  to  the  dock, 
And  he  '11  dump  her  into  the  river, 
And  she  '11  go  floating  down  the  river 
Without  any  head  and  without  any  legs  — 
And  I  did  n't  want  her  to  die  ! 
My  dolly,  my  dolly,  my  dolly, 
Is  dead  and  I  've  buried  her, 
And  I  did  n't  want  her  to  die  i 

This  childish  dirge  is  curiously  like  the  bold  and 
formless  lyric  outpourings  of  savages.  It  is  wildly 
rhythmic,  not  regular,  not  artificial,  instinctive  rather 
than  artistic.  It  has  even  the  repetition  and  redupli- 
cation and  overt  cataloging  which  often  characterize 
the  chants  of  primitive  races. 

Even  in  the  less  spontaneous  and  more  consciously 
artistic  paragraphs  of  the  great  orators,  we  can  often 
feel  the  rise  and  fall  of  rhythm,  sometimes  only  in  a 
single  sentence  and  sometimes  carried  through  a  long 
passage.  For  instance,  in  a  speech  of  John  Bright's 
delivered  during  the  Crimean  war,  he  said  that  "  the 
angel  of  death  has  been  abroad  through  the  land :  we 
may  almost  hear  the  beating  of  his  wings."  It  would 
be  easy  to  adduce  other  examples  from  the  orations 
which  are  charged  with  sweeping  emotion. 

Certain  of  the  novelists  have  now  and  again  availed 
themselves  of  this  same  device  to  enhance  the  pathos 
of  the  situation  they  were  setting  forth.  Dickens,  in 
particular,  could  rarely  resist  the  temptation  to  drop 
into  very  obvious  rhythm  whenever  he  stood  by  the 
death-bed  or  the  tomb  of  one  of  his  characters.  Here, 
for  example,  is  the  concluding  paragraph  of  "  Nicholas 
Nickleby " :  "  The  grass  was  green  above  the  dead 


12  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

boy's  grave,  trodden  by  feet  so  small  and  light,  that 
not  a  daisy  drooped  its  head  beneath  their  pressure. 
Through  all  the  spring  and  summer-time  garlands  of 
fresh  flowers,  wreathed  by  infant  hands,  rested  upon 
the  stone." 

In  general,  prose  is  for  daily  use  in  this  workaday 
world  ;  and  it  becomes  rhythmic  when  it  has  to  express 
emotion,  —  that  is  to  say,  only  on  special  occasions.  But 
even  when  it  is  properly  rhythmic  we  do  not  like  to  have 
it  encroach  on  the  borders  of  actual  verse.  We  feel  that 
prose  is  one  thing  and  that  verse  is  another ;  and 
therefore  a  delicate  ear  is  annoyed  by  the  excessive 
regularity  of  the  rhythm  in  Dickens's  elegies.  It  is 
a  little  too  obvious,  and  it  offends  us  as  out  of  place 
in  prose.  The  fundamental  difference  between  the 
rhythms  appropriate  to  prose  and  those  appropriate  to 
verse  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  latter  conform  to  a  sim- 
ple pattern  and  that  the  former  do  not.  If  a  writer 
of  prose  forces  us  to  perceive  his  pattern  by  limiting 
it,  as  Dickens  does,  he  loses  the  ample  freedom  proper 
to  prose,  and  he  suffers  this  loss  without  achieving  the 
special  merit  of  verse.  In  prose,  our  ear  delights  in 
the  vague  suggestion  of  a  pattern,  which  is  too  large 
for  us  to  grasp,  even  though  we  take  pleasure  in  it. 
In  verse,  the  poet  spreads  the  pattern  before  us,  in- 
vites our  attention  to  it ;  he  awakes  in  us  the  expect- 
ancy that  its  elements  will  recur  at  regular  intervals ; 
and  it  is  partly  by  the  gratification  of  this  expectancy 
that  he  gives  us  pleasure.  This  pattern  is  the  result 
of  reducing  rhythm  to  measure  ;  and  it  is  this  metrical 
rhythm  which  the  writer  of  prose  must  avoid  unless 
he  is  willing  to  annoy  our  ears.  The  orator  and  the 
novelist  may  deal  with  the  same  subject-matter  as  the 


RHYTHM  13 

poet,  but  they  must  not  infringe  on  his  method.  Their 
diction  may  be  as  impassioned  as  his,  as  lofty  in 
phrasing,  as  elevated  in  imagination ;  but  they  must 
avoid  that  formal  regularity  which  we  hold  to  be  the 
privilege  of  the  poet  alone. 

This  formal  regularity  is  what  constitutes  English 
verse ;  and  it  is  easy  to  analyze.  When  we  read  a  line 
of  English  poetry  we  cannot  help  noticing  that  certain 
syllables  are  bolder  or  longer  or  more  emphatic  than 
others.  In  Longfellow's 

Tell  me  not,  in  mournful  numbers, 

these  more  important  syllables  are  the  first  of  every 
pair  ;  and  in  Drake's 

When  Freedom  from  her  mountain  height, 

they  are  the  second  in  every  pair.  We  may  indicate 
the  rise  and  fall  of  these  syllables  in  Longfellow's  line 
by  suggesting  that  it  more  or  less  resembles 

Ttimty,  tumty,  tumty,  twnty, 
while  in  Drake's  line  it  is 

litum,  titum,  titum,  titum. 
In  Byron's  line 

And  the  sheen  of  their  spears  was  like  stars  on  the  sea, 

the  more  important  syllables  are  the  third  in  each 
group  of  three  ;  and  the  scheme  of  the  line  is 

Titilum,  tititum,  tititum,  titifum. 

If  we  read  as  one  line  Hood's 

Make  no  deep  scrutiny  into  her  mutiny, 
the  important  syllables  are  the  first  in  each  group  of 
three ;  and  the  scheme  is 

Twmtity,  tumtity,  tumtity,  tumtity. 


14  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

That  these  syllables  have  an  importance  superior  to 
the  other  syllables  in  the  same  lines  is  undeniable. 
This  importance  may  be  due  to  the  fact  that  they  are 
either  more  emphatic  or  longer  in  time  of  utterance. 
But  are  these  differences  in  tone  or  in  accent  the  only 
difference  between  them?  Here  we  enter  on  one  of 
the  most  disputed  questions  in  versification.  The  more 
important  syllables  may  differ  in  length,  in  the  time 
we  take  to  utter  them,  that  is  to  say,  in  quantity. 
They  may  differ  also  in  emphasis,  in  stress,  that  is  to 
say,  in  accent.  They  may  differ  further  in  pitch,  in 
their  melodic  tone.  Or  the  difference  may  sometimes 
be  due  to  a  combination  of  time,  stress  and  pitch,  for 
a  syllable  may  be  at  once  longer  than  the  syllables 
which  precede  and  follow,  while  it  is  also  more  sharply 
accented,  as  well  as  higher  in  pitch.  We  may  be  in 
doubt  as  to  the  cause  of  the  superior  importance  of 
these  syllables,  but  we  never  deny  the  fact  that  for 
some  reason  they  are  more  important.  And  this  supe- 
rior importance  of  certain  syllables  over  other  sylla- 
bles in  the  same  line,  whatever  its  cause  may  be,  is  the 
basis  of  English  versification.  There  is  no  profit  in 
here  entering  on  the  discussion  as  to  the  cause  of  this 
superior  importance ;  and  hereafter  in  this  book  these 
syllables  of  superior  importance  will  be  called  long^ 
even  though  they  may  owe  their  value  to  other  ele- 
ments than  mere  duration  of  time.  In  like  manner, 
the  syllables  of  inferior  importance  will  be  called 
short,  even  though  they  may  contain  long  vowels.  And 
for  the  sake  of  convenience  a  long  syllable  will  be 
marked  or  indicated  by  the  sign  -  and  a  short  syllable 
by  the  sign  v. 

If  now  we  substitute  these  signs  for  tumty  and 


RHYTHM  15 

tumtity,  we  find  that  Longfellow's  line  "  Tell  me  not, 
in  mournful  numbers,"  may  be  represented  thus  :  — 


Drake's  "  When  Freedom  from  her  mountain  height  " 
will  be  translated  into  these  symbols  :  — 

V  —  ,    V  —  5    V  —  >    V  — 

Byron's  "  And  the  sheen  of  their  spears  was  like  stars 
on  the  sea"  has  this  scheme:  — 

V  V  —  J    V  V  —  )    V  V  —  )   V  V  — 

And  Hood's  "  Make  no  deep  scrutiny  into  her  mu- 
tiny "  has  this  :  — 


—  w>  —  v  v»  — 


Thus  we  see  that  each  of  these  lines  is  made  by  the 
fourfold  repetition  of  the  same  unit.  Each  of  these 
units  we  call  a  foot.  In  Longfellow's  line  this  unit  is 
-  v,  a  long  followed  by  a  short ;  and  by  tradition  this 
foot  is  called  a  trochee.  In  Drake's  line  the  unit  is  ^  -, 
a  short  followed  by  a  long ;  and  this  foot  is  called  an 
iamb  or  iambus.  In  Byron's  line  the  unit  is  v  v  -, 
two  shorts  followed  by  a  long ;  and  the  name  of  this 
foot  is  anapest.  In  Hood's  line  the  unit  is  -  v  v,  a 
long  followed  by  two  shorts,  a  foot  which  is  known  as 
a  dactyl.  These  terms,  trochee,  iamb,  anapest,  and 
dactyl,  have  been  taken  over  from  Latin  versification, 
although  they  there  represent  feet  not  really  corre- 
sponding to  the  English  feet  which  bear  the  same  names. 
These  four  are  probably  the  only  feet  possible  in 
English  versification,  because  in  English,  which  is  a 
strongly  accented  language,  we  seem  to  be  unable  to 
utter  three  syllables  in  succession  without  making  one 


16  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

of  them  more  important  than  the  other  two,  longer  or 
more  emphatic.  Doubtless  a  few  examples  of  three 
short  syllables  in  succession  may  be  discovered  by  a 
diligent  examination  of  the  whole  body  of  English 
poetry ;  but  they  are  very  few. 

In  fact,  our  speech  is  so  accentual  that  we  find  it 
almost  impossible  to  give  exactly  equal  emphasis  to 
two  syllables  in  the  same  foot ;  and  we  are  therefore 
deprived  of  the  use  of  the  spondee,  made  up  of  two 
longs,  — ,  a  foot  which  was  most  useful  in  the  versifi- 
cation of  the  Greeks  and  Romans.  More  than  one 
English  word  taken  by  itself  seems  to  be  a  spondee, 
baseball,  for  instance,  and  stronghold  ;  but  when  such 
words  are  used  in  verse,  either  the  first  syllable  or  the 
second  is  likely  to  be  so  lengthened  or  emphasized 
that  we  have  a  trochee  or  an  iambus.  Spondees  can 
be  discovered  in  English  verse,  especially  in  Milton, 
but  they  are  infrequent.  Two  other  feet  known  to 
classic  meter  are  the  amphibrach,  v  -  w,  a  short,  a  long, 
and  a  short ;  and  the  amphimacer,  _  w  -,  a  long,  a 
short,  and  a  long.  But  neither  of  these  has  established 
itself  in  English  verse ;  and  when  either  of  them  has 
been  attempted,  the  result  is  very  doubtfully  dis- 
tinguishable from  a  sequence  of  dactyls  or  anapests. 
Even  Coleridge,  a  master  of  metrics,  was  not  able  to 
construct  an  English  amphibrach  and  an  English  am- 
phimacer which  should  set  itself  off  sharply  from  the 
anapest.  Here  is  his  ingenious  attempt  to  exemplify 
the  several  feet :  — 

Trochee  trips  from  long  to  short  ; 

From  long  to  long  in  solemn  sort 

Slow  Spondee  stalks,  strong  foot,  yet  ill  able 

Ever  to  come  np  with  Dactyl  trisyllable. 


RHYTHM  17 

Iambics  march  from  short  to  long  ; 

With  a  leap  and  a  bound,  the  swift  Anapests  throng  ; 

One  syllable  long  with  a  short  at  each  side 

Amphibrachys  hastes  with  a  stately  stride  : 

First  and  last  being  long,  middle  short,  Amphimacer 

Strikes  his  thundering  hoofs  like  a  proud  high-bred  racer. 

To  scan  a  line  is  to  divide  it  into  its  constituent 
feet,  to  mark  the  longs  and  the  shorts,  to  count  the 
feet  and  to  declare  their  character.  All  verse  in  the 
English  language  can  be  scanned  with  the  aid  of  the 
trochee  and  the  iambic,  the  anapest  and  the  dactyl. 
When  we  scan  Longfellow's  line  we  find  that  it  con- 
sists of  four  trochees  ;  and  therefore  we  describe  it  as 
trochaic  tetrameter.  When  a  line  has  two  feet  we 
call  it  dimeter  ;  with  three  feet  it  is  trimeter  ;  with 
four  it  is  tetrameter  ;  with  five,  pentameter  ;  with  six, 
hexameter,  and  with  seven,  heptameter.  When  Drake's 
line  is  scanned  it  is  seen  to  be  iambic  tetrameter; 
Byron's  is  anapestic  tetrameter  ;  and  Hood's  is  dac- 
tylic tetrameter.  When  we  scan  Gray's 

The  curfew  tolls  the  knell  of  parting  day 
we  find  this  scheme  — 


and  we  declare  that  the  line  is  iambic  pentameter.  And 
if  we  examine  the  first  line  of  Baring  Gould's  hymn, 

Onward,  Christian  soldiers  ! 
we  discover  that  the  scheme  is 


and   we  decide  that  it  is  trochaic  trimeter.    Austin 
Dobson's 

Too  hard  it  is  to  sing 

In  these  untunef  ul  times  I 


18  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

declares  itself  at  once  as  iambic  trimeter :  — 


v  —  I  v  • 


and  Budyard  Kipling's 

We  have  learned  to  whittle  the  Eden  Tree  to  the  shape  of  a 
surplice-peg 

is  obviously  anapestic  heptameter,  although  it  contains 
iambics  as  well  as  anapests,  as  the  translation  into 
symbols  discloses  at  once :  — 


And  this  apparent  irregularity,  this  commingling  of 
anapests  and  iambics,  leads  us  to  another  point  of 
prime  significance.  Verse  consists  of  a  regular  ar- 
rangement of  feet,  of  a  pattern  which  can  be  taken 
in  by  the  ear  without  undue  tension.  In  any  single 
foot  the  ear  permits  many  liberties  with  the  short  syl- 
lables ;  but  it  tolerates  only  a  little  license  with  the 
long  syllable.  If  there  are  in  a  line  the  required  num- 
ber of  long  syllables,  of  emphatic  beats,  the  ear  is  not  at 
all  particular  about  the  less  important  short  syllables. 
These  may  be  inserted  or  even  on  occasion  omitted 
altogether,  without  interfering  with  the  rhythm,  with 
the  swing  of  the  line  as  the  ear  expects  to  receive  it. 
For  example,  an  iambic  pentameter  may  have  an  added 
syllable  at  the  end  almost  without  our  noting  it,  as  in 
Shakspere's 

To  be,  or  not  to  be:  that  is  the  question. 

Or  the  final  short  syllable  of  a  terminal  trochee  may 
be  dropped  without  spoiling  the  expected  pattern,  as 
in  Longfellow's  "  Psalm  of  Life  "  :  — 


RHYTHM  19 

Tell  me  not,  in  mournful  numbers, 
Life  is  but  an  empty  dream  !  £v] 

For  the  soul  is  dead  that  slumbers, 

And  things  are  not  what  they  seem.  [w] 

Here  the  rhythm  is  trochaic ;  and  its  flow  is  not  broken 
by  the  dropping  out  of  these  short  syllables  at  the  end 
of  the  second  and  fourth  lines.  We  may  translate 
these  lines  into  symbols,  enclosing  the  dropped  sylla- 
bles in  brackets. 

—  V   I     —  V    I    —  V    I    —  V 

—  w   I   —  w   I  —  v   I  —  [wj 

—  w  I  —  w  I  —  v|—  v 

—  v  I  —  v   I  —  w  I  —  |_wj 

These  lines  still  retain  their  four  emphatic  beats  ;  and 
so  long  as  the  ear  can  perceive  these  beats  it  is  satis- 
fied. These  beats  carry  the  tune,  so  to  speak.  The  ear 
not  only  permits  variation  of  feet  inside  the  frame- 
work of  beats,  it  is  even  delighted  when  this  is  so 
adroitly  done  as  to  evade  the  monotony  of  strict  regu- 
larity. For  example,  the  ear  authorizes  the  poet  to  sub- 
stitute a  trochee  for  an  iambus  in  the  first  foot  of  an 
iambic  pentameter,  as  in  Shakspere's 

O  for  a  Muse  of  fire,  that  would  ascend. 

—  w  I  v  —  |  v  —  I  v  —  |v  — 

And  it  does  not  protest  when  a  similar  substitution  is 
made  hi  one  of  the  other  feet,  as  in  the  fourth  foot  of 
Shakspere's 

A  kingdom  for  a  stage,  princes  to  act. 

v  —  I  v  —  I  v—  I  —  v  Iv  — 

The  ear  does  not  protest  because  it  is  not  sharply  con- 
scious of  the  substitution.  It  expects  the  five  long  syl- 


20  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

lables  to  occur  substantially  in  the  established  order ; 
and  if  this  expectation  is  fulfilled,  it  is  more  or  less 
unconscious  of  the  minor  irregularity.  In  iambic  meters, 
it  allows  not  only  the  occasional  substitution  of  a  tro- 
chee but  the  frequent  substitution  of  anapests.  So  in 
anapestic  meters,  it  is  willing  to  accept  an  occasional 
iambus.  Indeed,  in  many  ballads  there  is  such  an  in- 
termixture of  the  iambus  and  of  the  anapest  that  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  decide  whether  the  rhythm  is 
really  iambic  or  anapestic.  In  the  older  traditional 
ballads,  the  iambus  predominates,  but  there  is  a  free 
infusion  of  anapests,  as  in  this  line  from  "  Sir  Patrick 
Spens":  — 

To  send  us  out,  at  this  time  of  the  year. 


i—        V  —    I    V  W  —    |    V  W  — 


These  traditional  ballads  were,  many  of  them,  composed 
early  in  the  history  of  English  poetry  by  unknown 
bards,  who  were  guileless  of  critical  theory,  and  who 
sang  their  stanzas  into  being  to  please  the  ears  of 
their  own  artless  contemporaries.  The  traditional  nurs- 
ery-rimes are  equally  spontaneous ;  and  they  cast  an 
equal  illumination  upon  the  natural  methods  of  Eng- 
lish versification.  If  we  examine  certain  of  the  primi- 
tive nursery-rimes  we  can  see  that  the  untutored  lyr- 
ists unhesitatingly  dropped  out  short  syllables,  never 
doubting  that  the  ears  of  their  young  hearers  would 
carry  the  tune  securely  in  spite  of  this  omission.  One 
of  the  most  familiar  of  nursery-rimes  begins 

Hark  !  Hark  ! 
The  dogs  do  bark 
The  beggars  are  come  to  town. 


RHYTHM  21 

The  second  and  the  third  lines  reveal  to  us  that  the 
rhythm  is  iambic;  and  this  shows  us  that  a  short  syl- 
lable has  been  suppressed  in  both  of  the  feet  of  the  first 
line.  If  we  translate  the  three  lines  into  symbols  we 
have  this :  — 


Take  another  nursery-rime  quite  as  well  known  :  — 

Pease  porridge  hot, 

Pease  porridge  cold, 
Pease  porridge  in  the  pot 

Nine  days  old. 

We  all  remember  how  this  is  to  be  spoken,  with  ita 
marked  pauses  and  with  its  accompanying  clapping  of 
the  hands.  We  see  that  the  rhythm  is  trochaic  ;  and 
although  many  of  the  short  syllables  are  missing,  the 
place  of  each  one  of  them  is  taken  by  a  pause,  by  a 
silence,  by  a  rest  (as  it  would  be  called  in  musical  no- 
tation). And  yet  our  memory  assures  us  that  these 
silences  do  not  interfere  with  the  carrying  of  the  tune. 
The  four  lines  might  be  represented  in  this  way  :  — 


-[w]    l- 


Perhaps  the  omissions  can  be  made  more  evident  by 
noting  the  omissions  in  the  lines  themselves  :  — 

Pease  [«]  |  porridge  |  hot  [w] 
Pease  [w]   I  porridge  |  cold  [v] 

Pease  [w]  I  porridge  |  in  the  |  pot  [v] 
Nine  [v]  I  days  [w]  |  old  [w] 


22  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

An  even  more  striking  illustration  of  the  instinctive 
ease  with  which  short  syllables  may  be  suppressed,  if 
their  places  are  taken  by  pauses,  by  rests,  can  be  found 
in  another  nursery-rime,  —  that  which  invites  us  to 
sing  a  song  of  sixpence.  One  line  of  this, 

Now  was  n't  that  a  dainty  dish  to  set  before  the  King  ? 
makes  it  plain  that  we  have  here  an  iambic  heptameter 


And  yet  at  the  end  of  the  little  ballad  we  are  told 
about  the  maid  in  the  garden  hanging  out  the  clothes, 
and  we  are  informed  that 

Down  came  a  blackbird  and  snipt  off  her  nose. 
And  we  find  ourselves  forced  to  translate  this  thus  :  — 

[w]  Down  |  [<./]  came  I  a  black  I  [v]  bird  |  and  suipt  |  [w] 
off  |  her  nose. 

[v]-|   [v]-|w-|   [w]-|  v-l    [v]-   Iv- 

Thus  represented  the  line  seems  to  the  eye  arbitrary, 
not  to  say  awkward  ;  and  yet  the  untrained  ear  of  a 
child  has  never  had  any  difficulty  in  feeling  the  full 
force  of  the  rhythm.  If  the  emphatic  syllables  assert 
themselves,  if  the  successive  beats  of  the  line  are  clearly 
perceptible,  then  the  ear  can  carry  the  tune,  even  if 
the  silences,  the  pauses,  the  rests,  are  frequent.  The 
line  is  still  divided  into  a  series  of  equal  periods;  and 
it  is  this  series  of  equal  periods  that  the  ear  expects 
and  demands.  The  eye  may  be  puzzled  ;  but  the  ear 
is  satisfied. 

This  device  of  boldly  dropping  out  a  short  syllable 
in  order  to  add  weight  to  the  long  syllable,  which  then 


RHYTHM  23 

stands  forth  alone,  has  been  utilized  not  only  by  the 
simple  makers  of  ballads  and  of  nursery-rimes  but  also 
by  the  greater  poets  of  our  language.  Tennyson  was 
a  devoted  student  of  versification,  and  he  found  hia 
profit  in  all  the  ingenious  devices  of  the  adroit  crafts- 
men who  had  preceded  him.  In  one  of  his  briefer  lyrics, 
he  may  have  taken  a  hint  from  the  unknown  writer  of 
the  nursery-rune  about  the  beggars  coming  to  town:  — 

Break,  break,  break, 

On  thy  cold  gray  stones,  O  Sea  ! 
And  I  would  that  my  tongue  could  utter 

The  thoughts  that  arise  in  me. 

In  reading  this  stanza,  with  due  regard  to  its  inten- 
tion, we  feel  that  each  of  the  four  lines  is  equal  in 
the  time  of  delivery  and  in  the  number  of  beats.  Thus 
there  is  a  harmonious  and  satisfactory  effect  on  the  ear, 
although  the  eye  may  inform  us  that  there  are  only 
three  syllables  in  the  first  line  while  there  are  nine  in 
the  third.  The  line  with  three  syllables  is  equal  to  the 
line  of  nine  syllables  because  it  has  intervals  of  silence 
equivalent  in  duration  of  time  to  the  syllables  it  lacks. 
The  stanza  is  really  anapestic  trimeter ;  and  it  may  be 
thus  represented:  — 

LW  wj  —  I  [w  vj  —  I  LW  v]  — 

w  v  —  I  [vj  v  —  I  [wj  v  — 

V  V  —  I  W  W  —  I  LWJ  w  —  I  v 
|_WJ  W  —  I  W  V  —  I  LVJ  w  ~ 

In  one  of  his  "Cavalier  Tunes"  called  "Marching 
Along,"  Browning  got  a  series  of  vigorous  effects  by 
the  repeated  use  of  this  device  of  substituting  rests  for 
actual  syllables :  — 

Kentish  Sir  Byng  stood  for  his  King, 
Bidding  the  crop-headed  Parliament  swing  : 


24  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

And,  pressing  a  troop  unable  to  stoop 
And  see  the  rogues  flourish  and  honest  folk  droop, 
Marched  them  along,  fifty-score  strong, 
Great-hearted  gentlemen,  singing  this  song. 

On  examination,  these  lines  are  seen  to  be  dactylic 
tetrameter,  but  with  a  free  dropping  out  of  the  shorter 
syllables,  which  are  not  missed,  since  their  places  are 
taken  by  equivalent  pauses,  the  rhythm  therefore  flow- 
ing on  unbroken.  Here  is  the  translation  into  sym- 
bols:— 

—  w  v  I   —  |_v  wj   I  —  w  v  I   —  L^  vj 

—  w  v  I  — ww/l   —  v  v  I   —  |_w  vj 

v  I  -  [v]  v  I  -  v  v  I  -  [v  v] 
v  I  -  v  w  1  -  v  w  t  -  TV  v] 


v      —  _v 


Another  peculiarity  is  to  be  noted  both  in  Tenny- 
son's stanza  and  in  Browning's :  syllables  that  may 
seem  to  be  suppressed  in  one  line  sometimes  appear  in 
another.  At  the  end  of  Tennyson's  third  line,  we  find 
utter,  which  gives  the  line  a  short  syllable  too  much  ; 
but  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  line  we  find  that 
there  is  a  short  syllable  too  little.  Perhaps  the  rhythm 
has  been  carried  over  from  one  line  to  the  next.  So  at 
the  beginning  of  Browning's  third  and  fourth  lines, 
we  find  a  short  syllable  and,  which  is  not  needed  in 
the  first  foot  of  either  of  these  lines,  but  which  stands 
instead  of  one  of  the  two  short  syllables  omitted  at  the 
ends  of  the  lines  preceding  these  two.  This  is  evidence 
that  the  poets  were  not  composing  their  lines  one  by 
one,  and  that  they  were  thinking  rather  of  their 
stanzas  as  wholes.  These  suppressions  and  insertions 
may  seem  abnormal  to  the  eye  which  is  looking  for 


RHYTHM  25 

exact  symmetry ;  but  they  are  quite  normal  to  the  ear 
which  is  held  by  the  swing  of  the  rhythm. 

It  should  always  be  remembered  that  poets  com- 
pose their  lyrics  not  only  for  the  ear,  but  also  by  the 
ear.  Sometimes  a  poet  does  not  write  down  his  song 
until  he  has  made  it  up  in  his  head,  chanting  it  to 
himself  and  fitting  it  to  the  tune  that  is  running  in  his 
own  ears.  Scott,  for  example,  often  beat  out  his  bold 
ballads  while  he  was  on  horseback.  Tennyson  composed 
in  the  open  air  on  the  slopes  of  the  hills  of  Haslemere ; 
afterwards  he  tested  what  he  had  done  when  he  put 
it  down  in  black  and  white ;  but  it  owed  its  rhythmic 
ease  to  the  earlier  labor  far  from  his  desk.  Composing 
to  please  his  own  ear,  first  of  all,  and  then  the 
ears  of  all  who  might  speak  his  lines,  the  poet  does  not 
care  whether  the  printed  poem  happens  to  conform 
to  academic  rules  which  are  the  result  of  the  mistaken 
belief  that  poetry  should  appeal  primarily  to  the 
eyes,  —  a  belief  that  no  true  poet  has  ever  held. 
Professor  Gummere  has  reminded  us  that  Coleridge 
and  Wordsworth,  Scott  and  Tennyson,  all  read  their 
verses  in  "  a  kind  of  chant  "  ;  and  Hazlitt  has  recorded 
that  in  the  case  of  the  three  older  poets,  this  "  acted  as 
a  spell  upon  the  hearer."  And  then  Professor  Gummere 
adds  the  needed  explanation  that  "this  chant  was 
not  singsong ;  singsong  simply  shows  the  feet,  baldly 
asserts  meter,  while  rhythmical  reading  does  justice 
to  cadence  and  the  harmonious  movement  of  the 
verse." 

The  poet  may  even  choose  to  print  his  lines  in  a 
form  which  will  possibly  at  first  puzzle  the  eyes  of 
those  who  seek  to  declare  its  metrical  scheme;  and 
this  he  does  unhesitatingly  if  he  has  made  sure  that 


26  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

the  rhythm  is  easily  apprehended  by  the  ear.  Here  is 
the  opening  stanza  of  one  of  Poe's  most  beautiful 
lyrics,  "  For  Annie  " :  — 

Thank  Heaven  !  the  crisis, 

The  danger  is  past, 
And  the  lingering  illness 

Is  over  at  last 
And  the  fever  called  "  Living  " 

Is  conquered  at  last. 

The  ear  seizes  the  rhythm  of  this  at  once,  and  is  per- 
fectly satisfied  with  it,  however  much  the  eye  may  be 
at  a  loss  to  declare  just  what  the  apparently  irregular 
meter  really  is.  This  perplexity  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  eye  sees  six  lines  as  the  poet  has  printed  his  poem, 
whereas  the  ear  catches  only  three,  each  of  which  is 
an  anapestic  tetrameter.  The  transcription  into  signs 
shows  this  clearly :  — 


_w    w  —      w  —      w 

w  —  I  w  v  — 
w  —  I  w  w  —  I  w 

V  —    I    V  V    I    — 
V  V  —    I    W  W   —    I    V 


The  actual  scheme  is  clearly  revealed  when  we  put 
these  symbols  into  three  lines :  — 

[_v J  v  —  I  v  w  —  I  v  w  —  I  w  v  — 
w  v  —  I   w  w  —  I   w  w  —  I   w  v  —• 


—  I  v  w  —   I  w  v  —  I   w  v  — 


In  his  suggestive  essay  on  the  "  Rationale  of  Verse," 
Poe  adduced  a  most  striking  example  of  a  poet's  lack 


RHYTHM  27 

of  regard  for  the  eye  of  the  reader.  He  quoted  the 
opening  lines  of  Byron's  "  Bride  of  Abydos  "  (in  which 
the  British  bard  was  echoing  Goethe) :  — 

Know  ye  the  land  where  the  cypress  and  myrtle 

Are  emblems  of  deeds  that  are  done  in  their  clime, 

Where  the  rage  of  the  vulture,  the  love  of  the  turtle, 

Now  melt  into  sorrow,  now  madden  to  crime? 

Know  ye  the  land  of  the  cedar  and  vine, 

Where  the  flowers  ever  blossom,  the  beams  ever  shine; 

Where  the  light  winga  of  Zephyr,  oppress'd  with  perfume, 

Wax  faint  o'er  the  gardens  of  Gtil  in  her  bloom; 

Where  the  citron  and  olive  are  fairest  of  fruit, 

And  the  voice  of  the  nightingale  never  is  mute. 

The  American  poet-critic  then  asked  how  these 
lines  are  to  be  scanned.  The  first  is  obviously  dac- 
tylic, but  the  last  is  as  obviously  anapestic,  and  more 
than  one  of  the  others  is  doubtful  in  its  apparent  irreg- 
ularity. If  the  lines  are  considered  severally,  we  are 
at  a  loss  to  declare  the  rhythm  in  which  this  beautiful 
prelude  is  written.  But  Byron  did  not  compose  them 
severally;  he  composed  them  continuously,  or  rather 
he  composed  the  passage  as  a  whole  regardless  of  its 
division  into  lines.  He  was  appealing  to  the  ears  of 
the  hearer  and  not  to  the  eyes  of  the  reader,  certain 
that  the  ears  can  carry  the  tune  without  regard  to 
any  division  into  lines  for  the  purposes  of  print.  Con- 
sidering the  passage  as  a  whole,  we  observe  that  the 
rhythm  is  dactylic  from  beginning  to  end,  even  in 
those  lines  which,  taken  by  themselves,  may  seem  to 
be  anapestic.  The  syllables  which  appear  to  be 
missing  at  the  end  of  the  first  line  are  to  be  found  at 
the  beginning  of  the  second ;  and  those  missing  at 
the  end  of  the  second  are  to  be  found  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  third ;  and  so  on. 


28  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

In  other  words,  the  poet  is  free  to  select  his  pattern 
at  will.  He  may  choose  a  trochaic  or  an  iambic  rhythm, 
a  dactylic  or  an  anapestic.  Having  decided  on  the 
number  of  his  beats,  of  his  long  syllables,  he  must  ac- 
custom our  ears  to  the  pattern  he  has  resolved  upon. 
When  this  tune  has  rung  in  our  ears  he  must  sustain 
it  with  his  long  syllables,  but  he  is  at  liberty  to  vary 
his  short  syllables  at  will,  and  even  to  suppress  them, 
if  these  changes  do  not  interfere  with  the  tune  of  the 
verse.  When  we  have  once  perceived  the  pattern,  we 
are  willing  enough  to  allow  the  poet  the  privilege  of  any 
variation  which  does  not  interfere  with  the  tune  which 
he  has  given  us  to  carry  in  our  heads. 

Sometimes  he  profits  by  this  liberty  at  his  peril 
because  he  cannot  always  make  sure  that  we  are  going 
to  take  his  lines  in  exact  accordance  with  his  metrical 
intent.  He  may  have  supposed  that  his  suppression  of 
a  short  syllable,  his  substitution  of  a  trochee  for  an 
iambus  would  not  interrupt  the  flow  of  the  rhythm. 
And  he  may  have  been  at  fault  in  this  supposition, 
since  for  some  reason  unforeseen  by  him,  the  sup- 
pression or  the  substitution  may  call  attention  to 
itself  and  thus  break  the  current  of  the  rhythm.  If 
this  happens  the  poet  can  find  no  excuse  in  pointing 
out  that  the  license  he  took  was  authorized  by  the 
practice  of  some  earlier  master  of  verse.  If  the  mis- 
fortune befalls  him,  he  cannot  claim  exemption  by 
citing  precedents.  It  is  by  the  result  of  his  own 
work  that  the  poet  must  be  judged.  If  his  lines  fail 
to  fall  agreeably  on  the  ear,  then  is  the  poet  himself 
at  fault. 

The  poet,  no  less  than  the  prose-writer,  is  bound  to 
observe  what  Herbert  Spencer  called  the  principle  of 


RHYTHM  29 

Economy  of  Attention.  At  any  moment  any  one  of 
us  has  just  so  much  attention  to  give  to  the  man  who 
is  addressing  us.  Some  of  this  attention  is  neces- 
sarily taken  up  by  the  effort  of  seizing  what  he  is 
saying ;  and  therefore  the  less  his  manner  attracts  our 
notice,  the  more  attention  we  shall  have  to  bestow  upon 
his  matter.  The  more  clearly  and  the  more  simply  he 
can  deliver  his  message,  the  more  amply  can  we  re- 
ceive it.  The  poet  has  something  to  say  to  us  and 
he  employs  verse  to  convey  this  to  our  ears  ;  therefore 
whenever  the  verse  itself  arrests  our  attention  we 
have  just  so  much  the  less  to  bestow  upon  what  he  has 
to  say.  If  he  has  once  set  the  tune  and  aroused  in  us 
the  interest  of  expectancy  for  a  definite  rhythm,  then 
whenever  he  violates  this  accepted  rhythm  he  forces 
us  suddenly  to  consider  his  instrument,  and  our  in- 
terest is  thereby  at  once  distracted  from  his  meaning. 
Therefore,  it  is  safer  for  the  poet  to  vary  his  lines 
very  cautiously  and  to  keep  in  mind  always  the 
limitations  of  the  human  ear,  since  it  is  only 
through  the  ear  that  he  can  move  the  soul  of  his 
fellow-man. 

And  we  as  readers  must  do  our  part  also.  We 
must  read  verse  aloud  as  the  poet  meant  us  to 
read  it,  as  he  read  it  himself  when  he  sang  it  into 
being.  "  We  must  restore  to  poetry  its  primary 
intention  as  cadenced  and  melodious  verse,"  so  Pro- 
fessor Gummere  has  declared.  "  What  is  a  lyric  with- 
out its  rhythmical  values  ?  What  is  the  wild  water  of 
a  brook  when  it  is  dammed  into  a  duckpond  ?  The 
very  tropes  and  figures  depend  upon  this  charm  of 
movement,  like  flashes  of  light  thrown  back  by  the 
hurrying  waves.  Yet  we  are  so  afraid  of  singsong,  and 


30  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

even  more  afraid  of  the  pathetic  and  sentimental, 
that  we  suppress  all  cadences,  and  come  out  trium- 
phant with  a  hybrid  sort  of  performance  that  reminds 
one  of  a  bird  which  should  flap  its  wings  without 
flying." 


CHAPTER 


METER 

Here,  at  the  outset,  we  find  precisely  what  differentiates  verse  from 
prose.  These  two  possess  much  in  common.  Their  ideals  are  often  sim- 
ilar ;  their  subjects  may  be  identical  ;  their  cadences  sometimes  coin- 
cide. Yet  there  is  an  essential  difference,  which  has  seldom  been  rightly 
stated,  and  which  is  a  difference  of  mechanical  method.  The  units  of 
prose  are  diverse,  irregular  in  length,  rarely  conformed  to  a  common 
pattern.  In  verse,  on  the  other  hand,  succession  is  continuous.  Some- 
thing recurs  with  regularity.  This  is  the  distinctive  note  of  verse, 
making  its  structure  differ  from  that  of  prose  ;  no  other  absolute  line 
of  demarcation  can  be  drawn.  Typical  recurrence,  uniform  repetition, 
is  the  prime  postulate  of  meter.  —  T.  S.  OMOND  :  A  Study  of  Meter. 

WE  have  seen  that  the  habits  of  the  English  language 
are  such  as  to  make  it  practically  impossible  to  write 
English  verse  except  in  one  of  the  four  rhythms  which 
we  call  iambic,  trochaic,  anapestic  and  dactylic.  And 
the  practice  of  the  poets  reveals  that  any  poem  in  our 
language  must  be  in  one  or  another  of  these  rhythms. 
The  poet,  having  accustomed  our  ear  to  the  rhythm  he 
has  chosen,  must  keep  to  the  pattern  of  his  choice.  He 
must  give  us  the  succession  of  beats  in  the  order  he  has 
promised  them  to  us.  He  may  make  varied  substitu- 
tions and  frequent  suppressions  inside  his  lines,  but  he 
must  preserve  always  the  expected  framework  of  the 
chosen  form.  That  is  to  say,  he  must  decide  once  for 
all,  whether  he  will  compose  in  an  iambic  rhythm  or  a 
trochaic,  an  auapestic  or  a  dactylic. 

Of  these  four  rhythms,  the  iambic  has  ever  been  the 
favorite.  Indeed,  there  seem  to  have  been  periods  when 
it  was  the  only  rhythm  known.  In  King  James'  rules 


82  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

for  writing  verse,  published  in  1585,  only  the  iambus 
is  considered,  as  if  it  was  the  sole  possible  rhythm.  Even 
in  Greek,  Aristotle  held  the  iambic  to  be  the  most  col- 
loquial, since  "  conversational  speech  runs  into  iambic 
form  more  frequently  than  into  any  other  kind  of 
verse."  Probably  nine  tenths  of  English  poetry  is  iam- 
bic ;  this  is  the  basis  of  the  blank  verse  of  Shakspere's 
plays  and  of  Milton's  epic,  of  most  ballads  old  and  new, 
of  the  heroic  couplet  of  Dryden  and  of  Pope,  of  the 
sonnet,  and  of  a  large  majority  of  the  hymns.  Even  in 
the  nineteenth  century,  when  poets  were  eager  in  de- 
vising new  stanzaic  arrangements,  most  of  them  clung 
to  the  iambus.  Perhaps  this  immense  popularity  is  due 
to  the  simplicity  of  the  rhythm,  with  its  short  followed 
by  a  long,  in  accord  with  the  rhetorical  precept  of  put- 
ting the  emphasis  at  the  end.  Perhaps  it  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  when  the  iambic  is  once  established  in  the  ear 
of  the  listener,  the  poet  can  avoid  monotony  by  a  wide 
variety  of  substitutions  and  suppressions. 

Although  iambic  and  trochaic  rhythms  consist  in  a 
similar  succession  of  alternating  longs  and  shorts,  the 
iambic  is  far  bolder ;  it  is  more  masculine ;  it  has  a 
direct  vigor,  which  seems  often  to  be  lacking  to  the 
trochaic.  The  iambic  apparently  has  a  majesty  of  its 
own  which  fits  it  for  loftier  themes.  The  trochaic  is 
gentler,  sweeter,  more  feminine,  adapted  for  consola- 
tion rather  than  for  reinvigoration.  It  is  inferior  in 
terseness  and  in  sharpness. 

The  anapestic  rhythm  had  served  chiefly  for  satire 
and  for  humor,  until  the  nineteenth  century,  when  Eng- 
lish poets  began  to  appreciate  it  and  to  employ  it  for 
nobler  topics.  It  was  the  favorite  of  Swinburne,  who 
handled  it  with  superb  freedom  and  mastery. 


METER  83 

The  dactylic  rhythm  is  least  used  of  the  four,  al- 
though Hood  proved  that  it  had  advantages  of  its  own, 
and  although  Browning  employed  it  with  clear  under- 
standing of  its  special  characteristics. 

In  rimeless  verse  a  poet  might  let  any  one  of  these 
rhythms  flow  on  indefinitely,  breaking  off  only  when 
he  had  come  to  the  end  of  his  topic.  But  this  un 
broken  flow  is  too  fatiguing  for  the  ear;  and  there- 
fore poems  are  divided  into  lines,  so  that  the  ear  can 
have  intervals  of  rest.  When  a  rhythm  is  thus  cut 
into  sections  we  have  meter,  for  we  can  measure 
every  line  by  the  number  of  times  the  foot  happens  to 
be  repeated.  In  the  verse  of  the  modern  languages, 
the  ends  of  the  lines  are  generally  distinguished  by 
rimes,  a  device  unknown  to  the  ancients.  In  some 
modern  languages,  especially  in  French  which  lacks 
boldness  of  accent,  these  terminal  rimes  are  so  im- 
portant as  to  be  almost  essential.  But  in  English,  al- 
though rime  is  useful,  it  is  not  necessary;  and  the 
poets  of  our  language  have  adventured  themselves  in 
many  forms  of  unrimed  verse. 

Whether  there  is  or  is  not  a  terminal  rime,  there 
is  generally  a  pause  of  some  sort  to  mark  the  end  of 
the  line ;  and  there  is  often  a  full  stop,  although  the 
more  accomplished  masters  of  meter  reveal  their  dex- 
terity in  carrying  over  the  sense  from  line  to  line 
while  still  keeping  the  structure  distinct.  Here  again 
the  appeal  is  to  the  ear  and  not  to  the  eye ;  the  poet 
may  choose  to  print  his  lines  to  suit  his  own  whim ; 
but  the  way  in  which  he  presents  them  does  not  de- 
termine the  metrical  scheme.  That  is  decided  by  the 
ear  of  the  listener  and  not  by  the  eye  of  the  reader. 
We  may  even  disregard  the  arrangement  of  the  rimes 


34  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

in  deciding  what  the  meter  really  is.  For  example, 
Shelley  chose  to  write  this  as  six  lines :  — - 

Arethusa  arose 

From  her  couch  of  snows 
In  the  Acroceraunian  mountains,  — 

From  cloud  and  from  crag, 

With  many  a  jag 
Shepherding  her  bright  fountains. 

And  Scott  chose  to  write  this  as  four  lines :  — 

Who  spilleth  life,  shall  forfeit  life, 

So  bid  my  lord  believe  ; 
That  lawless  love  is  guilt  above, 

This  awful  sign  receive. 

While  Macaulay  was  satisfied  to  set  this  down  as 
only  two  lines :  — 

Now  glory  to  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  from  whom  all  glories  are  ; 
And  glory  to  our  sovereign  liege,  King  Henry  of  Navarre. 

But  however  different  these  three  on  the  printed 
page  may  appear  to  the  eye,  the  ear  recognizes  them 
at  once  as  identical.  They  are  all  three  of  the  iambic 
heptameter,  modulated  by  occasional  anapests.  And 
when  we  translate  them  into  symbols  we  see  that 
Shelley's 

V  W  —    I    W  — 

V  V  —  I  W  — 
W—  I  W  V  —  I  V  W  —  I  V 

V—    I    W  — 

V  —  I  W  W  — 
—  W  I  V  —  I  W  —  I  V 

and  Scott's 

v—  Iv—  I  v—  I  w» 

V  —     I   V  —    I    V  — 

v—  I  w  —  Iv—  I  v«" 
w  —  I  v  —  I  w  — 


The  differing  typographical  presentations  and  the  dif- 
fering rime-schemes  may  be  disregarded  since  the 
effect  upon  the  ear  is  identical  in  all  three  cases. 
Other  examples  of  the  advisability  of  disregarding  the 
way  in  which  the  poet  may  have  written  his  lines  have 
been  given  in  the  second  chapter,  —  from  Poe's  "  For 
Annie  "  and  from  Byron's  "  Bride  of  Abydos."  In  all 
these  poems,  the  way  in  which  the  poet  has  preferred 
to  present  these  lines  to  the  eye  of  the  reader  is  not 
really  the  way  in  which  he  composed  them  for  his 
own  ear  and  for  the  ears  of  his  future  readers. 

There  is  no  limit  to  the  number  of  feet  which  may 
be  included  in  a  single  line,  except  in  so  far  as  excessive 
length  may  impose  an  undue  burden  on  the  ear  and 
make  it  more  difficult  to  carry  the  tune.  Swinburne 
wrote  a  ballade  in  anapestic  hexameter :  — 

There  are  cliffs  to  be  climbed  on  land,  there  are  ways  to  be 

trodden  and  ridden  ;  but  we 
Strike  out  from  the  shore  as  the  heart  invites  and  beseeches, 

athirst  for  the  foam. 

And  once  he  even  ventured  on  a  long-drawn  ana- 
pestic octameter,  which  called  for  twenty-four  syllables 
in  every  line :  — 

Ere  frost-flower  and  snow-blossom  faded  and  fell,  and  the 
splendor  of  winter  had  passed  out  of  sight, 

The  ways  of  the  woodland  were  fairer  and  stranger  than  dreams 
that  fulfil  us  in  sleep  with  delight. 


36  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Richard  Hovey  essayed  a  line  of  nine  iambics :  — 

Let  him  await  Another  who  shall  come  and  sit  in  the  Siegi 

Perilous, 
And  live.    In  Him  shall  he  behold  how  light  can  look  in  dark 

ness  and  forgive. 

Yet  in  practice  the  poets  have  rarely  chosen  to  em- 
ploy any  line  longer  than  the  heptameter ;  and  the 
pentameter  has  been  used  more  often  than  any  other 
measure  ;  it  is  the  meter  of  the  heroic  couplet,  of  blank 
verse  and  of  the  sonnet.  The  reason  for  the  popularity 
of  these  meters  is  physiological ;  the  pentameter  and 
the  heptameter  adjust  themselves  to  the  normal 
breathing  and  are  delivered  by  the  voice,  easily  and 
without  conscious  effort.  The  tetrameter  exactly  ac- 
cords with  the  rate  of  breathing  of  the  average  man ; 
and  this  accounts  for  its  "  fatal  facility." 

This  principle  was  worked  out  by  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes  in  his  suggestive  paper  on  the  "  Physiology 
of  Versification."  The  average  man  breathes  twenty 
times  a  minute ;  and  in  a  minute  the  average  man 
will  read  aloud  about  twenty  lines  of  "  Hiawatha" 
or  of  "  Marmion  "  ;  that  is  to  say,  he  will  probably 
pronounce  one  line  to  each  expiration  of  the  breath, 
taking  advantage  of  the  pause  at  its  close  to  breathe 
in  again.  "  The  only  effort  required  is  that  of  vocal- 
izing and  articulating;  the  breathing  takes  care  of 
itself,  not  even  demanding  a  thought  except  where 
the  sense  may  require  a  pause  in  the  middle  of  a  line. 
The  very  fault  found  with  these  octosyllabic  lines  is 
that  they  slip  away  too  fluently,  and  run  easily  into  a 
monotonous  singsong."  We  need  only  recite  a  brief 
passage  from  either  Scott's  poem  or  Longfellow's  to 


METER  37 

assure  ourselves  that  this  adverse  criticism   is   well 
founded.  Here  is  an  extract  from  "  Marmion  " :  — 

Thin  curling  in  the  morning  air, 

The  wreaths  of  failing  smoke  declare 

To  embers  now  the  brands  decayed, 

Where  the  night-watch  their  fires  had  made. 

They  saw,  slow  rolling  on  the  plain, 

Full  many  a  baggage-cart  and  wain, 

And  dire  artillery's  clumsy  car, 

By  sluggish  oxen  tugged  to  war. 

In  Longfellow's  "  Hiawatha,"  the  singsong  effect 
is  probably  intensified  by  the  trochaic  rhythm  and 
also  to  some  slight  extent  by  the  deliberate  repeti* 

tions :  — 

But  the  fearless  Hiawatha 
Heeded  not  her  woman's  warning  ; 
Forth  he  strode  into  the  forest, 
At  each  stride  a  mile  he  measured  ; 
Lurid  seemed  the  sky  above  him, 
Lurid  seemed  the  earth  beneath  him, 
Hot  and  close  the  air  around  him, 
Filled  with  smoke  and  fiery  vapors, 
As  of  burning  woods  and  prairies, 
For  his  heart  was  hot  within  him, 
Like  a  living  coal  his  heart  was. 

The  iambic  pentameter  line,  so  Holmes  declared, 
will  probably  be  read  at  the  rate  of  about  fourteen 
lines  a  minute.  "  If  a  breath  is  allowed  to  each  line  the 
respiration  will  be  longer  and  slower  than  natural,  and 
a  sense  of  effort  and  fatigue  will  soon  be  the  conse- 
quence "  ;  but  this  is  rarely  felt  because  there  is  a 
break  or  a  pause  generally  about  the  middle  of  the 
line,  which  serves  as  a  breathing-place.  "This  gives  a 
degree  of  relief,  but  its  management  requires  care  in 
reading."  Probably  the  immense  popularity  of  the 


38  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

pentameter  is  in  part  due  to  the  fact  that  it  is  not  so 
easy  that  it  slips  into  singsong,  and  in  part  that  it  can 
be  adjusted  readily  to  the  natural  processes  of  the 
vocal  apparatus. 

The  iambic  heptameter,  which  is  the  "common 
meter"  of  the  hymn-books  and  the  meter  of  most 
of  the  ballads,  and  which  is  perhaps  the  most  popu- 
lar of  English  meters  after  the  pentameter,  is  also 
satisfactory  from  a  physiological  point  of  view,  since 
the  fourteen  syllables  of  the  normal  iambic  line  sub- 
divide themselves  into  sections  of  eight  and  six,  allow- 
ing a  longer  pause  at  the  end  of  the  line.  Even  when 
a  fair  share  of  anapests  has  been  substituted  here  and 
there  for  the  normal  iambs,  there  are  still  not  more 
syllables  in  the  section  than  can  readily  be  uttered 
by  a  single  breath,  as  can  be  observed  by  reading  aloud 
the  quotations  from  Shelley,  Scott  and  Macaulay. 

Since  verse  is  written  to  be  spoken  and  to  be  heard, 
to  be  read  aloud  and  not  merely  to  be  read,  it  is  not 
difficult  to  see  why  the  iambic  hexameter  has  never 
been  a  favorite  with  the  poets  of  our  language.  Dr. 
Holmes  declared  that  it  was  "  almost  intolerable,  from 
its  essentially  unphysiological  character.  One  can  read 
the  ten-syllable  line  in  a  single  expiration  without  any 
considerable  effort.  One  instinctively  divides  the  four- 
teen-syllable  line  so  as  to  accommodate  it  to  the  respi- 
ratory rhythm.  But  the  twelve-syllable  line  is  too  much 
for  one  expiration  and  not  enough  for  two."  Here  are 
a  few  lines  from  Drayton's  "  Polyolbion  "  which  will 
serve  to  show  the  justice  of  these  remarks :  — 

The  naiads  and  the  nymphs  extremely  overjoyed, 
And  on  the  winding  banks  all  busily  employed, 


METER  39 

Upon  this  joyful  day,  some  dainty  chaplets  twine: 
Some  others  chosen  out,  with  fingers  neat  and  fine, 
Brave  diadems  do  make  ;  some  baldrics  up  do  bind  : 
Some  garlands  :  and  to  some  the  nosegays  were  assigned. 

Browning  chose  iambic  hexameter  for  his  "  Fifine 
at  the  Fair  "  ;  and  perhaps  the  unfortunate  meter  is 
one  reason  why  this  poem  has  never  attained  an  equal 
popularity  with  many  of  his  other  poems. 

Dr.  Holmes  asserted  that  this  critical  test  of  poetry 
by  the  stop-watch,  and  its  classification  according  to 
its  harmonizing  more  or  less  exactly  with  a  great  vital 
function,  is  exactly  scientific ;  but  he  warned  us  that 
we  must  not  overlook  the  personal  equation.  A  man 
"of  ample  chest  and  of  quiet  temperament  may 
breathe  habitually  only  fourteen  times  a  minute,  and 
find  the  iambic  pentameter  to  correspond  with  his  re- 
spiratory rhythm,  and  thus  easier  than  any  other  for 
him  to  read.  A  person  of  narrower  frame  and  more 
nervous  habit  may  breathe  oftener  than  twenty  times 
in  a  minute,  and  find  the  seven-syllable  verse  of 
Dyer's  '  Grongar  Hill '  fits  his  respiration  better 
than"  the  tetrameter  of  Scott  and  Longfellow.  In 
childhood,  before  we  have  attained  to  the  full-lunged 
power  of  our  maturity  and  when  our  breathing  is 
quicker  than  it  is  later,  we  find  the  briefer  meters 
easiest ;  and  perhaps  this  accounts  for  the  frequency 
of  dimeter  and  of  trimeter  in  our  nursery-rimes :  — 

Goosey,  goosey,  gander, 
Where  do  you  wander  ? 
and 

Little  Miss  Muffet 

Sat  on  a  tuffet 

Eating  her  curds  and  whey. 


40  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

As  these  nursery-rimes  are  artfully  adjusted  to 
the  undeveloped  breathing  apparatus  of  the  very 
young,  so  the  patriotic  chants  of  the  several  nations 
are  never  too  long  in  meter,  being  gaged  to  the 
average  of  human  respiration,  as  we  perceive  when 
we  consider  "  Yankee  Doodle  "  and  "  God  Save  the 
King,"  the  "  Marseillaise  "  and  "  What  is  the  German 
Fatherland  ?  "  "  Nothing  in  poetry,"  Dr.  Holmes  in- 
sisted, "  is  widely  popular  that  is  not  calculated 
with  strict  reference  to  the  respiratory  function." 
And  then  he  made  the  striking  suggestion  that  "  the 
unconscious  adaptation  of  voluntary  life  to  the  or- 
ganic rhythm  is  perhaps  a  more  pervading  fact  than 
we  have  been  in  the  habit  of  considering  it.  One  can 
hardly  doubt  that  Spenser  breathed  habitually  more 
slowly  than  Prior,  and  that  Anacreon  had  a  quicker 
respiration  than  Homer.  And  this  difference,  which 
we  conjecture  from  their  rhythmical  instincts,  if  our 
conjecture  is  true,  probably,  almost  certainly,  charac- 
terized all  their  vital  movements."  It  would  be  inter- 
esting to  push  this  suggestion  further  and  to  consider 
how  much  light  the  favorite  meters  of  Tennyson  and  of 
Browning,  of  Swinburne  and  of  Longfellow,  of  Whit- 
man and  of  Kipling,  may  shed  on  their  physiological 
organization.  A  French  student  of  versification  has 
insisted  that  the  hexameter  of  the  Greeks  and  Latins 
and  the  so-called  alexandrine  of  the  French  (iambic 
hexameter)  mark  the  limit  of  single  expiration  of  the 
human  voice;  and  that  therefore  no  longer  line  can 
ever  succeed  in  winning  a  wide  popularity. 

When  the  poet  has  chosen  his  meter  and  when  he 
has  established  in  our  ears  the  expectancy  proper  to  it, 
he  is  free  to  vary  the  strict  monotony  of  the  line,  by 


METER  41 

additions,  by  substitutions,  by  suppressions,  and  by 
shifting  his  central  pause.  He  may  do  these  things  at 
his  pleasure  for  our  pleasure,  within  the  sole  restric- 
tion that  he  must  not  disappoint  our  ear  of  its  expect- 
ancy. He  must  not  violently  force  us  to  read  any 
line  unnaturally,  by  misplacing  a  normal  accent  or  by 
unduly  prolonging  a  syllable.  He  must  so  compose 
that  when  we  read  for  the  meaning  we  are  reading 
also  for  the  meter.  Emerson  declared  that  it  was  the 
secret  of  Shakspere's  verse  "that  the  thought  con- 
structs the  tune,  so  that  reading  for  the  sense  will 
best  bring  out  the  rhythm."  If  a  line  satisfies  the  ear, 
when  it  is  read  naturally  with  full  regard  to  its  con- 
tent, then  it  is  a  good  line  prosodically ;  since  there  can 
be  no  other  test.  If  it  fails  to  satisfy  the  ear,  as  we 
read  it  aloud,  then  the  fault  might  be  ours,  for  we 
may  have  read  it  wrong ;  but  on  the  other  hand  the 
fault  might  be  the  poet's,  for  he  may  not  have  been 
able  to  impose  on  us  the  rhythmic  sequence  he  in- 
tended. It  is  the  poet's  duty  not  only  to  feel  his 
rhythm  himself,  but  so  to  transmit  it  that  we  cannot 
fail  to  feel  it  also.  If  he  does  not  succeed  in  this,  he 
violates  the  principle  of  Economy  of  Attention ;  he 
interrupts  the  current  of  sympathy  ;  he  throws  us  off 
the  track.  Herbert  Spencer  notes  that  we  are  put  out 
by  halting  versification :  "  Much  as  at  the  bottom 
of  a  flight  of  stairs,  a  step  more  or  less  than  we 
counted  upon  gives  us  a  shock,  so,  too,  does  a  mis- 
placed accent,  or  a  supernumerary  syllable,"  in  the 
wrong  place.  And  this  is  in  accord  with  the  advice 
given  by  Boileau  in  his  "  Art  of  Poetry  " :  — 

Write  what  your  reader  may  be  pleased  to  hear, 
And  for  the  measure  bare  a  careful  ear  ; 


42  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

On  easy  numbers  fix  your  happy  choice; 
Of  jarring  sounds  avoid  the  odious  noise; 
The  fullest  verse,  and  the  most  labored  sense  — 
Displease  us  if  the  ear  once  take  offence. 

We  have  seen  already  that  in  the  iambic  penta- 
meter the  poet  is  at  liberty  to  add  a  short  syllable  at 
the  end  of  his  line :  — 

To  be,  or  not  to  be :  that  is  the  question. 

We  have  seen  also  that  he  can  substitute  a  trochee 
for  an  iambus  in  the  opening  foot :  — 

O  f5r  a  Muse  of  fire,  that  would  ascend, 
or  in  almost  any  other  foot  in  the  line :  — 
A  kingdom  for  a  stage,  prince's  to  act. 

He  may  also  substitute  a  spondee  for  an  iambus,  as 
Milton  often  does :  — 

O'er  bog  or  steep,  through  strait,  rough,  dense,  or  rare, 
With  head,  hands,  wings  or  feet,  pursues  his  way  ; 
And  swims,  or  sinks,  or  wades,  or  creeps,  or  flies. 

So  strongly  accentual  is  our  language  that  two  con- 
secutive long  syllables  in  any  iambic  line  are  likely  to  be 
read  as  an  iambus  by  our  unconscious  shortening  of 
the  first  of  the  two  or  by  our  unconscious  lengthening 
of  the  second.  And  yet  in  these  lines  of  Milton's  it  is 
almost  impossible  not  to  feel  that  the  foot  is  really  a 
spondee,  infrequent  and  unnatural  as  that  foot  may  be 
in  English  verse.  If  we  read  for  the  meaning  only, 
without  in  any  way  forcing  the  rhythm,  rough  and 
dense  in  the  first  line  and  hands  and  wings  in  the 
second,  are  long  syllables,  of  equal  weight.  Milton  is 
ever  a  marvelous  metrist,  bending  sounds  to  do  his 


METER  43 

bidding  as  no  other  English  poet  has  ever  been  able 
to  do. 

Milton,  Pope  and  Tennyson  are  the  three  English 
poets  whose  artistry  in  verse  is  most  certain.  Their 
theories  of  poetry  were  very  different ;  but  each  of 
them  was  a  deliberate  and  conscious  artificer.  "  Again 
and  again,"  wrote  Wordsworth  in  a  letter,  "  I  must 
repeat  that  the  composition  of  verse  is  infinitely  more 
of  an  art  than  men  are  prepared  to  believe,  and  ab- 
solute success  in  it  depends  upon  innumerable  minu- 
tiae. .  .  .  Milton  talks  of  pouring  easy  his  unpre- 
meditated verse.  It  would  be  odious  and  untrue  to 
say  there  is  anything  like  cant  in  this,  but  it  is  not 
true  to  the  letter  and  tends  to  mislead.  I  could  point 
out  five  hundred  passages  in  Milton  upon  which  labor 
has  been  bestowed."  In  nothing  is  Milton's  art  more 
obvious  than  in  the  skill  with  which  he  modulates  his 
lines,  keeping  the  tune  intact  for  the  ear  of  the  listener 
and  yet  delighting  this  ear  by  the  delicately  chosen 
variations  of  accent.  Without  breaking  his  rhythm  he 
can  substitute  trochees  and  spondees  for  iambs ;  and 
he  can  change  the  march  of  his  line  to  accommodate  it 
more  expressively  to  his  thought,  making  the  sound 
echo  the  sense.  There  is  no  English  poet  whose  ver- 
sification better  repays  the  most  careful  study ;  and 
it  is  wonderful  to  discover  how  he  can  achieve  massive 
effects  by  apparently  simple  devices.  His  verse  justifies 
itself  to  the  ear ;  but  it  is  so  dextrously  adapted  to  the 
ear  that  it  has  often  puzzled  the  eyes  of  the  theorists 
who  have  sought  to  apply  an  arbitrary  method  of 
syllable-counting,  into  which  Milton's  large  and  free 
lines  frequently  fail  to  fit. 

While  Milton  is  the  mighty  master,  the  verse  of 


44  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

many  other  poets  rewards  analysis.  Especially  to  be 
noted  is  the  pleasure  the  poet  gives  our  ears  when  he 
modifies  his  tempo  to  accord  with  a  change  in  the 
thought  he  is  expressing.  Emerson,  for  example,  is  often 
careless  in  his  versification,  not  bestowing  on  it  the 
unhasting  and  unresting  attention  which  characterizes 
Milton's  composition.  Yet,  on  occasion,  Emerson  at- 
tains to  a  lofty  level  of  lyric  beauty :  — 

Thou  canst  not  wave  thy  staff  in  air, 
Or  dip  thy  paddle  in  the  lake, 
But  It  carves  the  bow  of  beauty  there, 
And  tne  ripples  iii  rime  the  oar  forsake. 

A  part  of  the  ease  and  melody  of  the  last  line  of  this 
quatrain  is  the  result  of  the  substitution  of  the  two 
lighter  anapests  for  the  more  sedate  and  stately  iambs. 
There  are  fourteen  feet  in  the  quatrain  and  all  but 
three  are  emphatically  iambic.  The  three  anapests 
occur  at  exactly  the  right  intervals  to  lighten  the 
movement  most  felicitously.  And  consider  also  this 
quatrain  of  Browning's :  — 

OvSr  the  sea  our  galleys  went, 
With  cleaving  prows  in  order  brave, 
T5  £  speeding  wind  and  3,  boTmding  wave, 
A  gallant  armament. 

Something  of  the  buoyancy  of  the  first  line  is  due 
to  the  substitution  of  a  trochee  for  an  iambus  in  the 
first  foot ;  and  the  two  anapests  in  the  third  line,  so  a 
critic  has  declared,  "give  life  and  rapidity  to  the  motion 
which  the  first  two  lines  picture  as  vigorous  and  steady." 
The  return  to  strict  iambics  in  the  final  line  "  restores 
the  original  impression  and  enriches  it  with  the  added 
notion  of  security." 


METER  45 

Attention  has  been  called  in  the  preceding  chapter 
to  the  fact  that  the  short  syllables  of  a  foot  may  be 
omitted  at  the  beginning  of  a  line  or  at  the  end  or 
even  within  the  line.  It  may  be  well  to  adduce  other 
examples.  Especially  in  dactylic  rhythm  either  one  or 
both  of  the  short  syllables  at  the  ends  of  the  lines  may 
be  suppressed  with  the  result  of  enriching  the  verse  by 
a  variety  which  pleases  the  ear.  We  may  take,  for 
example,  this  stanza  of  Hood's  "  Bridge  of  Sighs," 
written  in  dactylic  dimeter:  — 

One  more  Unfortunate, 

Weary  of  breath,  [w  vj 
Rashly  importunate, 

Gone  to  her  death  !  [v  v] 
Take  her  up  tenderly, 

Lift  her  with  care  ;  [w  w] 
Fashioned  so  slenderly, 

Young,  and  so  fair  !  [w  v] 

The  suppression  of  the  two  final  short  syllables  which 
is  only  casual  in  Hood's  poem  may  be  consistent,  as  in 
this  stanza  of  Austin  Dobson's  "  On  a  Fan,"  written 
in  dactylic  trimeter :  — 

Ah,  but  things  more  than  polite  [v 

Hung  on  this  toy,  voyez-vous  !  [w 
Matters  of  state  and  of  might,  [w  vl 

Things  that  great  ministers  do  ;  [w  <J] 

Things  that,  may  be,  overthrew  [^  J] 
Those  in  whose  brains  they  began  ;  [w  w] 

Here  was  the  sign  and  the  cue,  —  [^  v] 
This  was  the  Pompadour's  fan  !  [\s  v] 

Although  the  short  syllables  of  the  iambus  and  of 
the  dactyl  are  those  which  are  most  likely  to  be  sup- 
pressed, sometimes  even  the  long  syllable  of  the  iambus 
may  be  omitted,  its  place  being  taken  by  an  equivalent 


40  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

rest.  Of  this  as  good  an  example  as  any  may  be  found 
in  one  of  Macaulay's  stirring  ballads :  — 

And  how  can  man  die  better  [-]  than  facing  fearful  odds, 
For  the  ashes  of  his  fathers,  and  the  temples  of  his  gods  ? 

Another  example,  from  Austin  Dobson,  shows  the 
suppression  of  the  long  syllable  in  three  lines  out  of 

four :  — 

The  ladies  of  St.  James's  [_] 

Go  swinging  to  the  play  ; 
Their  footmen  run  before  them,  [-] 

With  a  "  Stand  by  !  Clear  the  way  ! " 
But  Phyllida,  my  Phyllida  ! 

She  takes  her  buckled  shoon, 
When  we  go  out  a-courting  [_] 

Beneath  the  harvest-moon. 

One  frequently  employed  method  of  lightening  verse 
is  to  add  a  short  syllable  at  the  end  of  an  iambic  line, 
thereby  permitting  a  double  rime,  which  relieves  the 
monotony  of  the  emphatic  termination  of  the  ordinary 
iamb.  Sometimes  this  added  syllable  is  at  the  end  of 
the  first  and  third  lines,  as  in  this  stanza  of  Pea- 
cock's "  Love  and  Age  "  :  — 

You  grew  a  lovely  roseate  maiden, 

And  still  our  early  love  was  strong  ; 
Still  with  no  care  our  days  were  laden, 

They  glided  joyously  along; 
And  I  did  love  you  very  dearly  — 

How  dearly,  words  want  power  to  show; 
I  thought  your  heart  was  touched  as  nearly  ; 

But  that  was  fifty  years  ago. 

Or  the  extra  syllable  which  makes  the  double  rime 
may  be  appended  to  the  second  and  fourth  lines,  as  iu 
this  stanza  of  Praed's  "  Belle  of  the  Ball-room  "  :  — 


METER  47 

She  smiled  on  many,  just  for  fun,  — 

I  knew  that  there  was  nothing  in  it  I 
I  was  the  first  —  the  only  one 

Her  heart  had  thought  of  for  a  minute,  — 
I  knew  it,  for  she  had  told  me  so, 

In  phrase  which  was  divinely  molded; 
She  wrote  a  charming  hand,  —  and  oh  ! 

How  sweetly  all  her  notes  were  folded  ! 

The  methods  of  avoiding  monotony  most  often  to  be 
observed  are  the  use  of  double  and  treble  rimes,  the 
shifting  of  the  pause  which  occurs  toward  the  middle 
of  a  line  and  the  interchange  of  one  foot  for  another 
at  exactly  that  point  in  the  line  where  the  substitution 
helps  to  bring  out  the  thought.  Sometimes  —  as  we 
have  already  seen  —  these  substitutions  may  be  so 
free  and  so  frequent  that  we  are  almost  in  doubt 
whether  a  rhythm  is  really  iambic  or  anapestic,  —  as 
in  this  stanza  from  a  ballad  of  Scott's :  — 

Oh  !  I  lo'e  weel  my  Charlie's  name, 

Though  some  there  be  that  abhor  him; 
But  oh  !  to  see  the  deil  gang  hame 

Wi'  a'  the  whigs  before  him  ! 
fv  v]  Over  the  water,  and  over  the  sea, 

And  over  the  water  to  Charlie; 
Come  weal,  come  wo,  we  '11  gather  and  go, 

And  live  and  die  with  Charlie. 

Here  there  is  no  question  but  that  the  result  is 
pleasing  to  the  ear ;  and  while  we  may  choose  to  mark 
off  the  iambs  and  the  anapests  for  our  own  informa- 
tion, their  intermingling  matters  little.  As  King  James 
declared  more  than  three  centuries  ago,  "your  ear 
must  be  the  only  judge  and  discerner."  What  the 
poet  needs  above  all  else  is  a  natural  ear  for  the  tunes 
of  verse.  Without  this,  he  will  unceasingly  blunder 


48  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

and  annoy  us  with  the  harshness  of  his  lines.  With  it, 
he  has  the  root  of  the  matter  in  him ;  and  he  can  then 
go  forward  resolutely  to  acquire  an  added  skill  in 
handling  the  subtleties  of  metrical  technic.  "  For  if 
Nature  be  not  the  chief  worker  in  this  art,"  to  quote 
from  King  James  once  more,  "  rules  will  be  but  a  band 
to  Nature,  and  will  make  you  within  a  short  space 
weary  of  the  whole  art ;  whereas  if  Nature  be  chief  and 
bent  to  it,  rules  will  be  a  help  and  staff  to  Nature." 


CHAPTER  IV 

RIME 

Whate'er  yon  write  of,  pleasant  or  sublime, 
Always  let  sense  accompany  your  rime  ; 
Falsely  they  seem  each  other  to  oppose,  — 
Rime  must  be  made  with  reason's  law  to  close  ; 
And  when  to  conquer  her  you  bend  your  force, 
The  mind  will  triumph  in  the  noble  cause ; 
To  reason's  yoke  she  quickly  will  incline, 
Which,  far  from  hurting,  renders  her  divine. 

BOILBAU,  Art  of  Poetry  (as  translated  by  Soame). 

IN  all  modern  languages  poetry  is  generally  rimed; 
and  even  in  English,  in  spite  of  our  possession  of 
blank  verse,  a  metrical  instrument  of  surpassing 
power  and  variety,  most  of  our  verse  is  in  rime. 
Although  there  is  not  yet  any  absolute  agreement 
upon  its  rules,  we  may  venture  to  define  rime  in  Eng- 
lish as  an  identity  of  the  vowel-sound  in  the  last  long 
foot  and  of  all  the  sounds  that  follow  it,  preceded  by 
a  difference  in  the  consonant  sound  that  conies  before 
this  final  long  vowel.  Thus  charm  and  alarm  are  rimes, 
charming  and  alarming,  charmingly  and  alarmingly. 
There  must  be  a  distinct  difference  in  the  consonant 
sound  that  precedes;  cent  and  descent,  meant  and 
lament  are  not  generally  accepted  in  English  as  good 
rimes.  Although  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  cite  from 
distinguished  poets  examples  of  the  effort  to  pass  off  as 
rimes  pairs  of  words  in  which  there  is  no  change 
in  the  consonant  preceding  the  vowel  of  the  final  long 
syllable,  there  is  an  almost  unanimous  opinion  that 


60  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

this  is  contrary  to  the  best  traditions  of  English 
poetry.  Yet  it  is  only  fair  to  note  that  Lowell  links 
recompense  and  expense,  Austin  Dobson  unites  Mentor 
and  tormentor,  Byron  ties  together  philanthropic  and 
misanthropic.  It  may  be  well  to  mention  also  that  the 
principle  that  the  accord  shall  be  on  the  vowel  of  the 
final  long  syllable  is  violated  by  Walt  Whitman  who 
mates  exulting  and  daring,  crowding  and  turning,  and 
by  Poe  who  conjoins  dead  and  tenanted. 

A  rime  on  one  syllable  only,  turn  and  discern,  is 
called  single,  or  masculine.  A  rime  on  two  syllables, 
turning  and  discerning,  is  called  double,  or  feminine. 
A  rime  on  three  syllables,  beautiful  and  dutiful^  is 
called  triple. 

A  single  rime  is  the  natural  termination  of  iambic 
and  of  anapestic  rhythms :  — 

Here  was  a  type  of  the  true  elder  race, 

And  one  of  Plutarch's  men  talked  with  us  face  to  face; 

and 

The  Assyrian  came  down  like  a  wolf  on  the  fold  ; 
His  cohorts  were  gleamiiig  in  silver  and  gold. 

The  double  rime  is  the  natural  termination  of  tro- 
chaic rhythms :  — 

And  the  people  —  ah,  the  people, 
They  that  dwell  up  in  the  steeple. 

And  the  triple  is  the  natural  termination  of  dactylic 
rhythms :  — 

Ere  her  limbs  frigidly 
Stiffen  too  rigidly. 

But  the  iambic  and  anapestic  rhythms  may  have  an 


RIME  51 

added  short  syllable,  and  in  this  case  they  have  double 

rimes :  — 

The  time  I  've  lost  in  wooing, 
In  watching  and  pursuing; 

and 

Let  the  wind  take  the  green  and  the  gray  leaf 

Cast  forth  without  fruit  upon  air  ; 
Take  rose-leaf  and  vine-leaf  and  bay-leaf 

Blown  loose  from  the  hair. 

In  like  manner  the  short  syllable  may  be  dropped  at 
the  end  of  a  trochaic  rhythm,  and  then  we  have  a  single 
rime  :  — 

Lives  of  great  men  all  remind  us 

We  can  make  our  lives  sublime,  £w] 
And  departing  leave  behind  us 

Footprints  on  the  sands  of  time.  [WJ 

And  in  a  dactylic  rhythm  either  one  or  both  of  the 
short  syllables  at  the  end  of  the  line  may  be  omitted, 
with  the  result  that  in  the  first  case  we  have  a  double 
rime  and  in  the  second  a  single  rime :  — 

Still,  for  all  slips  of  hers, 

One  of  Eve's  family  — 
Wipe  those  poor  lips  of  hers 

Oozing  so  clammily. 
Loop  up  her  tresses  [V] 

Escaped  from  the  comb,  [w  sj 
Whilst  wonderment  guesses  [vj 

Where  was  her  home  ?  [w  vj 

Since  poetry  must  be  considered  always  as  something 
to  be  said  or  sung,  there  should  be  absolute  identity 
of  sound  in  the  vowels  and  consonants  which  make 
up  a  rime.  The  ear  is  the  judge,  not  the  eye,  and 
therefore  identity  of  spelling  is  not  sufficient.  Height 
does  not  rime  with  eight ;  but  it  does  rime  with 


62  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

sight,  bite,  indict  and  proselyte.  One  does  not  rime 
with  gone  or  with  tone  or  with  shone  ;  but  it  does 
rime  with  son  and  with  dun.  Tomb  is  no  rime  for 
comb  or  bomb  or  rhomb ;  but  it  mates  perfectly  with 
doom  and  spume  and  rheum.  Our  English  orthogra- 
phy is  chaotic  in  its  disregard  of  the  proper  phonetic 
representation  of  the  sounds  of  our  language  ;  and, 
therefore  it  is  the  worst  of  guides  for  the  poet  who 
seeks  to  delight  our  ears.  If  he  is  tempted  to  link  to- 
gether two  words  which  lack  the  needful  identity  of 
sound,  whether  they  are  or  are  not  identical  in  spelling, 
he  violates  at  once  the  principle  of  Economy  of  Atten- 
tion. He  fails  to  provide  the  listeners  with  the  specific 
pleasure  he  has  led  them  to  anticipate.  He  has  with- 
drawn their  interest  for  a  moment  from  his  meaning 
to  his  machinery.  "While  they  are  asking  themselves 
whether  what  he  has  given  them  was  meant  for  a 
rime  or  not,  and  whether  it  really  is  a  rime,  the 
current  of  their  sympathy  is  cut  off.  He  may  feel  that 
he  is  forced  by  the  paucity  of  pairing  words  at  his 
command  to  take  the  nearest  approach  to  a  rime 
that  he  can  lay  his  hand  on ;  but  he  does  this  at  his 
peril.  The  listeners  may  forgive  this,  if  the  poem  as  a 
whole  appeals  to  them  and  pleases  them ;  but  none  the 
less  are  they  likely  to  feel  that  this  false  rime  is  a 
blemish,  just  as  they  would  resent  his  forcing  the  ac- 
cent upon  some  syllable  where  it  does  not  naturally 
belong.  A  false  rime  affects  a  sensitive  ear  like  a 
false  note  in  music. 

It  may  be  that  this  insistence  upon  rigid  identity 
of  sound  is  a  counsel  of  perfection,  and  that  it  sets 
up  too  exalted  a  standard.  And  it  is  a  fact  that  many 
poets  of  high  distinction  have  on  occasion  fallen  from 


RIME  53 

grace  and  descended  to  marry  pairs  of  words  which 
protested  more  or  less  violently  against  the  wedding. 
Poe  linked  valleys  and  palace  ;  Mrs.  Browning  con- 
joined remember  and  chamber ;  Bret  Harte  tied  to- 
gether rarest  and  heiress;  "YVhittier  united  Eva  and 
give  her;  Kipling  weds  abroad  and  lord;  Browning 
coupled  windows  and  Hindus,  as  well  as  spider  and 
consider ;  Keats  combined  critics  and  prickets;  Ten- 
nyson put  together  pair  and  her  ;  and  Emerson  went 
so  far  as  to  join  in  matrimony  woodpecker  and  hear. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  these  poets  are  great  in 
their  several  degrees  in  spite  of  these  atrocious  rimes, 
more  or  less  resented  by  every  one  who  has  a  sensitive 
ear  for  the  melody  of  verse.  The  moment  we  admit 
that  the  appeal  of  poetry  is  primarily  to  the  ear,  we 
must  confess  that  "  a  rime  to  the  eye  "  is  an  absurd- 
ity. Rime  is  a  uniformity  of  sound;  and  as  the 
younger  Tom  Hood  aptly  remarked,  "  You  do  not 
match  colors  by  the  nose  or  sounds  by  the  eye." 

There  is  something  to  be  said,  however,  in  behalf 
of  certain  inadequate  rimes  which  are  traditional, 
which  have  been  employed  by  poets  in  every  genera- 
tion, and  which  may  be  said  to  be  accepted  by  con- 
vention. These  are  pairs  of  words  like  ever  and  river ', 
shadow  and  meadow,  heaven  and  even,  love  and  prove. 
Of  course,  they  are  not  really  rimes  at  all ;  and  yet 
unless  some  such  pairing  is  allowed,  ever  and  shadow, 
heaven  and  love  are  likely  to  go  often  unmarried,  be- 
cause of  the  lack  of  fit  mates  in  our  language  for  these 
words  which  are  a  necessary  part  of  the  poet's  vocab- 
ulary. The  only  exact  rimes  to  love  are  glove  and 
dove,  above  and  shove ;  and  the  only  exact  rimes  to 
heaven  are  leaven  and  seven  and  eleven.  Now  shove 


54  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

is  not  a  fit  bride  for  love ;  and  in  serious  verse  it  is 
not  often  that  heaven  will  mate  itself  spontaneously 
either  with  seven  or  eleven.  There  is  a  certain  cogency 
in  the  plea  that  the  union  of  shadow  and  meadow 
and  these  other  marriages  of  reason  have  been  "le- 
gitimated by  custom,"  as  has  been  claimed  by  one 
writer,  who  asserted  that  "  river  has  just  got  to  rime 
with  ever  or  the  game  cannot  be  played."  Yet  it  might 
be  urged  in  rebuttal  that  this  plea  could  be  advanced 
only  by  a  lover  of  poetry  long  familiarized  with  the 
custom  he  defends,  and  that  young  readers,  generation 
after  generation,  will  feel  a  certain  shock  of  dissatis- 
faction the  first  time  these  unhappy  marriages  are 
announced  to  them.  The  one  safe  rule  is  to  abide  by 
the  rigor  of  the  game  and  to  avoid  anything  which 
may  offend  the  ear  of  any  one. 

For  if  we  once  abandon  the  belief  that  rimes  ought 
to  be  rigorously  exact  to  the  ear  of  the  listener,  if  we 
once  accept  any  heresy  of  "allowable  rimes,"  then 
we  have  lost  the  true  faith  and  we  have  parted  with 
the  sole  compass  that  can  guide  us.  At  first  we  may 
wink  at  the  minor  infraction  of  the  letter  of  the  law 
and  accept  the  tying  together  of  ever  and  river,  for 
example,  and  of  love  and  prove;  and  then  we  shall 
find  it  harder  to  resist  the  insidious  claim  of  the 
"  rime  to  the  eye,"  which  would  permit  the  mating 
of  eight  and  sleight.  Having  gone  so  far  on  the  wrong 
road,  there  is  little  to  prevent  us  from  ending  our  un- 
fortunate journey  in  a  state  of  mind  which  might  at 
last  allow  us  to  tolerate  the  pairing  of  bean  and  ocean 
and  of  plague  and  ague,  because  of  their  identity  of 
orthography.  That  way  madness  lies.  And  we  shall 
do  well  to  keep  to  the  strait  and  narrow  path.  "  A 


RIME  55 

barbarous  phrase,"  so  Ben  Jonson  once  declared,  and 
perhaps  he  would  have  included  a  barbarous  rime, 
*<hath  often  made  me  out  of  love  with  a  good  sense, 
and  doubtful  writing  hath  wracked  me  beyond  my 
patience." 

When  we  set  up  the  test  of  exact  repetition  of  sound, 
we  should  be  willing  to  abide  by  it,  and  to  be  satisfied 
with  a  rime  which  is  perfect  in  our  ordinary  pro- 
nunciation, not  insisting  upon  pedantic  precision  of 
speech.  Our  unfortunate  spelling  is  continually  sug- 
gesting to  us  that  it  is  our  duty  to  strive  for  an  ex- 
actness of  articulation  which  we  none  of  us  attain 
and  which  indeed  we  could  hardly  achieve  without  an 
absurd  over-insistence  on  trifles.  For  example,  Tenny- 
son has  been  censured  for  riming  flower  and  hour 
on  the  theory  tk&t  flower  is  a  dissyllable  and  hour  a 
monosyllable.  Now,  whether  either  or  both  of  these 
words  can  be  called  monosyllabic  or  dissyllabic  is  be- 
side the  question,  since  the  average  man  of  cultivated 
speech  pronounces  them  in  such  manner  that  they 
rime  perfectly. 

Swinburne  has  linked  riot  and  quiet :  — 

Here,  where  the  world  is  quiet, 

Here,  where  all  trouble  seems 
Dead  winds'  and  spent  waves'  riot, 

In  doubtful  dream  of  dreams. 

To  the  eye  quiet  and  riot  seem  to  differ  in  the 
vowel-sound ;  but  in  the  ear  both  of  them  take  an  ob- 
scure sound  for  which  we  have  no  exact  symbol  in  our 
alphabet.  This  same  obscure  sound  occurs  again  in 
Tennyson's  riming  of  Devon  and  Heaven  ;  and  any 
objection  to  this  may  be  dismissed  as  merely  pedantic 
purism. 


56  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Perhaps  Browning  was  a  little  too  colloquial  when 
he  chose  to  rime  barret  and  parrot :  — 

Margheritone  of  Arezzo, 

With  the  grave-clothes  garb  and  swaddling  barret, 
Why  purse  up  mouth  and  beak  in  a  pet  so, 

You  bald  old  saturnine  poll-clawed  parrot  ? 

Barret  is  an  unusual  word,  an  auglicization  of  the 
Italian  barretta,  and  some  of  us  would  be  inclined  to 
give  it  a  sharp  e,  like  that  in  let,  whereas  the  o  in 
parrot  has  another  obscure  sound  in  normal  speech,  a 
sound  which,  whatever  it  is,  is  certainly  not  identical 
with  the  e  in  let.  In  the  same  poem  Browning  under- 
takes to  rime  scaffold  with  baffled :  — 

Shall  I  be  alive  that  morning  the  scaffold 
Is  broken  away,  and  the  long-pent  fire, 

Like  the  golden  hope  of  the  world,  unbaffled 
Springs  from  its  sleep,  and  up  goes  the  spire  ? 

Here  again  it  is  a  question  as  to  exactly  what  our 
normal  pronunciation  is.  Do  we  really  sound  the  o  in 
scaffold  or  do  we  so  obscure  it  that  the  word  is  a  fit 
mate  for  baffled?  As  to  this,  opinions  will  undoubt- 
edly differ;  and  if  this  is  the  case,  Browning  has 
risked  the  possibility  of  diverting  our  attention  from 
his  story  to  his  rime.  The  principle  to  be  borne  in 
mind  always  is  that  rime  should  seem  natural  and 
easy,  that  it  should  appear  absolutely  effortless,  and 
even  inevitable.  It  should  resemble  the  attire  of  a 
well-bred  woman,  or  the  style  of  a  strong  writer,  in 
that  it  never  attracts  attention  to  itself.  This  princi- 
ple Browning  seems  to  have  violated  when  he  rimes 
mistress  and  this  tress :  — 


RIME  57 

Nay  but  you,  who  do  not  love  her, 

Is  sbe  not  pure  gold,  my  mistress  f 
Holds  earth  aught  —  speak  truth  —  above  her  ? 

Aught  like  this  tress,  all,  and  this  tress. 

Here  we  may  detect  a  certain  forcing  of  the  words 
for  the  sake  of  the  rime ;  and  the  same  strain  is  to  be 
observed  in  a  stanza  of  Tennyson's :  — 

Came  wet-shod  alder  from  the  wave, 

Came  yews,  a  dismal  cotery  ; 
Each  plucked  his  one  foot  from  the  grave, 

Pousseting  with  a  sloe-tree. 

Especially  to  be  avoided  is  any  rime  which  sug- 
gests vulgarity  of  pronunciation.  When  Holmes  links 
Elizas  and  Advertisers,  we  cannot  help  wondering 
whether  he  was  in  the  habit  of  pronouncing  the  for- 
mer Elizers  ;  and  when  Whittier  rimes  Eva  with  re- 
ceive her,  we  feel  that  this  is  possible  only  to  one  who 
is  willing  to  pronounce  Eva  as  though  it  was  eever. 
This  same  unfortunate  slip  of  taste  was  made  by  Mrs. 
Browning :  — 

Now  grant  my  ship  some  smooth  haven  win  her; 
I  follow  Statius  first,  and  then  Corinna. 

Browning  himself  once  rimed  /  and  enjoy,  which 
might  tempt  a  hostile  critic  to  suggest  that  the  poet 
was  in  the  habit  of  consorting  with  Yankee  rustics, 
some  of  whom  still  say  enjy.  Wordsworth,  who  in- 
sisted that  the  vocabulary  of  everyday  life  should 
serve  as  the  diction  of  poetry,  once  so  far  forgot  him- 
self as  to  rime  brethren  with  tethering.  The  dropping 
of  the  final  g  of  the  present  participle  is  not  uncom- 
mon in  literary  circles  in  London  to-day  ;  and  yet  it 


58  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

has  a  flavor  of  rusticity.  It  suggests  not  the  poet  care- 
ful of  his  utterance,  but  the  villager,  careless  of  his 
speech.  To  those  who  are  in  the  habit  of  sounding  the 
final  g  in  words  ending  with  ing,  this  dropping  of  the 
g  is  distinctly  offensive.  It  is  an  annoying  vulgarism, 
wholly  out  of  place  in  poetry  of  serious  intent.  Yet  it 
may  be  found  again  and  again  in  any  anthology  of  the 
British  poets  of  the  nineteenth  century,  although  it  is 
far  less  frequent  in  American  verse.  Scott  puts  together 
Hevellyn  and  yelling;  Rossetti  has  laughing  and 
half  in;  and  Wordsworth  descends  to  coming  and 
omen  —  which  is  as  inexcusable  as  brethren  and  teth- 
ering. Poe  protested  against  the  length  of  the  license 
Mrs.  Browning  allowed  herself  in  the  vain  effort  to 
conjoin  Eden  and  succeeding,  taming  and  overcame 
him,  coming  and  woman,  children  and  bewildering. 

Of  course,  the  dropping  of  the  final  g  is  perfectly 
proper  in  dialect  verse,  wherein  the  poet  has  proposed 
to  reproduce  the  exact  pronunciation  of  the  unedu- 
cated. And  it  is  not  out  of  place  in  broadly  comic 
verse,  —  although  even  here  it  would  be  better  to  indi- 
cate the  intended  pronunciation  to  the  reader's  eye  by 
substituting  an  apostrophe  for  the  final  g  which  is  not  to 
be  spoken,  —  invitirf  and  come  right  in,  for  example. 
Possibly  some  of  us  would  make  this  correction  for 
ourselves  when  we  read  aloud  the  lilting  lyric  in  praise 
of  the  Bells  of  Shandon, 

That  sound  so  grand  on 
The  pleasant  waters 
Of  the  river  Lee, 

and  we  might  almost  attempt  an  Irish  brogue,  so  con- 
vincingly Hibernian  is  the  tone  of  the  poem :  — 


RIME  59 

I  've  heard  bells  tollin1 
Old  Adrian's  mole  in, 
Their  thunder  roUin' 

From  the  Vatican. 
And  cymbals  glorious 
Swinging  uproarious 
In  the  gorgeous  turrets 

Of  Notre  Dame. 

Here  we  are  asked  to  receive  the  final  syllable  of 
Vatican  as  a  rime  to  Dame.  There  is  no  need  to  in- 
quire whether  the  a  in  can  and  the  a  in  Dame  are  prop- 
erly mated,  for  what  is  most  obvious  is  that  the  first 
word  ends  with  the  sound  of  n  and  the  second  with 
the  sound  of  m.  And  earlier  in  the  same  lyric  we 
find 

Those  Shandon  bells 
Whose  sounds  so  wild  would 
In  the  days  of  childhood 
Fling  round  my  cradle 
Their  magic  spells. 

Here  we  are  asked  to  receive  as  a  double  rime  wild 
would  and  childhood,  in  spite  of  the  substitution  of 
an  h  for  a  to  in  the  final  short  syllable  of  the  second 
line.  Apparently  the  lyrist  was  satisfied  by  the  actual 
identity  of  the  vowel-sound  and  was  careless  of  the 
consonants  that  followed  it.  Strictly  speaking,  this  is 
not  rime  but  assonance,  that  is,  identity  of  the  long 
vowel  of  the  final  foot  with  liberty  to  modify  the  con- 
sonant at  will.  The  use  of  assonance  instead  of  rime 
is  of  high  antiquity ;  we  can  find  it  in  a  proverbial 
couplet  like 

See  a  pin  and  pick  it  up 

All  day  long  you  '11  have  good  luck. 


60  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

We  can  discover  it  frequently  in  nursery-rimes :  — 

Leave  them  alone, 

And  they  will  come  home. 

And  again :  — 

Little  Tommy  Tucker, 
Singing  for  his  supper, 
What  shall  he  have  ? 
Brown  bread  and  butter. 

It  is  to  be  found  also  in  the  traditional  bacchana- 
lian lyric  which  begs  the  landlord  to  fill  the  flowing 
bowl,  and  which  asks  us  to  accept  over  as  a  rime  for 
October. 

We  can  observe  it  even  in  Shakspere,  in  the 
"  Comedy  of  Errors  "  :  — 

So  thou,  who  hast  no  unkind  mate  to  grieve  thee, 
With  urging  helpless  patience  would  relieve  me. 

And  again  in  a  play  which  is  generally  attributed 
to  Shakspere,  in  "  Pericles,"  in  the  opening  couplet  of 
the  speech  of  Gower  as  Prologue :  — 

To  sing  a  song  that  old  was  sung, 
From  ashes  ancient  Gower  is  come. 

In  one  sonnet  Shakspere  matches  open  and  broken, 
and  in  another  remembered  and  tendered.  : 

We  can  find  it  in  Scott :  — 

Heaven  send  it  happy  dew, 
Earth  lend  it  sap  anew. 

We  can  note  it  again  in  Whittier's  uniting  main 
land  and  train  band.  But  where  it  still  flourishes 
freely  is  in  the  comic  song  of  the  violently  funny  mu- 
sical song-piece.  So  long  as  the  final  long  vowel  gets 


RIME  61 

across  the  footlights  boldly,  neither  the  writers  of  the 
words  of  the  song  nor  the  hearers  seem  to  care  whether 
there  is  any  kinship  in  the  consonants.  A  satirist  has 
held  these  negligent  rimesters  up  to  scorn  in  a 
parody  of  their  own  method :  — 

There  seems  not  to  be  a  man 
In  this  comic  opera  land 
Who  is  mindful  of  a  rime  ; 
Anything,  they  say,  is  fine. 
Don't  they  siug  of  all  the  happy 
Days  they  spent  in  Cincinnati  f 
And,  with  rare  poetic  feeling, 
Carol  of  a  boyhood  fleeting  • 
Lyric-writers,  will  you  answer 
Where  you  get  your  rime  for  transfer  ? 
Some  and  done  —  arid  always  war 
Makes  the  proper  rime  to  saw. 
Can  you  think  a  rime  to  pie-fork  f 
No,  you  cannot  ?  Well,  it 's  high  talk. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  this  primitive  as- 
sonance, possibly  of  Celtic  origin  and  surviving  in 
nursery-rime  and  street-lyric,  is  exact  in  mating  its 
vowels  and  slovenly  in  matching  its  consonants ;  and 
it  is  thus  precisely  the  reverse  of  the  so-called  "  allow- 
able rimes,"  which  poets  of  high  literary  pretension 
have  permitted  themselves,  river  and  ever,  shadow 
and  meadow,  in  which  the  consonants  are  exactly 
mated  and  the  vowels  are  matched  in  more  slovenly 
fashion.  The  unliterary  ear  of  the  populace  is  satis- 
fied if  it  can  catch  the  repetition  of  the  bold  vowel, 
while  the  sophisticated  ear  of  the  dilletant  may  even 
find  a  certain  perverted  pleasure  in  a  slight  variation 
of  this  vowel,  accompanied  by  exact  identity  of  the 
consonants.  Perhaps  it  is  not  going  too  far  to  suggest 


62  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

that  here  the  unsophisticated  taste  of  the  unpretend- 
ing crowd  is  wiser  than  the  overcultivated  taste  of  the 
dilletants,  since  the  vowel  supplies  the  dominant  car- 
rying sound  to  a  rime,  and  the  identity  of  the  vowel 
is  therefore  more  important  than  the  identity  of  the 
consonants.  Of  course,  there  is  no  really  adequate 
rime  which  has  not  the  double  identity  of  vowel  and 
of  consonant. 

Rime  should  be  so  exact  as  not  to  attract  attention 
to  itself,  just  as  meter  should  not  attract  attention  to 
itself.  Rime  and  meter  might  be  likened  to  the  two 
rails  along  which  the  poet  invites  us  to  glide  with  him ; 
and  the  more  smoothly  we  move  forward,  the  less  we 
have  occasion  to  consider  the  track  itself,  the  better 
pleased  we  are,  and  the  more  completely  can  we  bestow 
our  interest  upon  the  passengers  in  the  car  or  upon  the 
landscape  glimpsed  through  the  windows.  Rime  and 
meter  must  work  together  unobtrusively  to  this  end. 
What  Lowell  said  of  meter  is  true  also  of  rime,  although 
in  a  less  degree :  "  Meter,  by  its  systematic  and  reg- 
ular occurrence,  gradually  subjugates  and  tunes  the 
senses  of  the  hearer,  as  the  wood  of  the  violin  arranges 
itself  in  sympathy  with  the  vibration  of  the  strings,  and 
thus  that  predisposition  to  the  proper  emotion  is  accom- 
plished which  is  essential  to  the  purpose  of  the  poet.  You 
must  not  only  expect,  but  you  must  expect  in  the  right 
way;  you  must  be  magnetized  beforehand  in  every 
fiber  by  your  own  sensibility  in  order  that  you  may 
feel  what  and  how  you  ought." 

The  principle  here  laid  down  by  Lowell  is  often 
deliberately  violated  by  Browning,  in  not  a  few  of 
whose  serious  poems  we  find  the  poet  consciously  striv- 
ing for  ingenious  and  far-fetched  rimes  which  attract 


RIME  63 

attention  to  themselves  and  thereby  more  or  less 
distract  us.  There  is  an  obvious  shock  to  our  sensi- 
bility when  we  come  to  a  couplet  like  this :  — 

I,  that  have  haunted  the  dim  San  Spirito, 
Patient  on  altar-step  planting  a  weary  toe; 

or  to  another  like  this  :  — 

Oh,  what  a  face  !  One  by  fits  eyed 
Her  and  the  horrible  pitside. 

Or  to  a  quatrain  like  this :  — 

Image  the  whole,  then  execute  the  parts  — 

Fancy  the  fabric 
Quite,  ere  you  build,  ere  steel  strikes  fire  from  quartz, 

Ere  mortar  dab  brick. 

These  rimes  are  perfect,  no  doubt,  but  they  are 
artificial.  They  are  too  clever,  too  ingenious,  too  witty, 
to  be  in  keeping  with  the  somber  tone  of  the  poems  in 
which  we  find  them.  Browning's  practice  was  con- 
demned in  advance  by  Coleridge,  who  asserted  that 
"  double  and  trisyllable  rimes  form  a  lower  species 
of  wit,  and,  attended  to  exclusively  for  their  own  sake, 
may  become  a  source  of  momentary  amusement." 
Here  Coleridge  seems  to  have  gone  a  little  too  far, 
since  Hood,  for  one,  proved  in  the  "Bridge  of  Sighs" 
that  double  and  treble  rimes  may  be  employed  effec- 
tively. The  difference  between  Browning's  use  of  these 
rimes  and  Hood's  lies  in  this,  that  the  latter  employs 
natural  rimes,  instantly  recognizable  as  ordinary  words 
and  evoking  no  start  of  surprise,  whereas  the  former 
invents  novel  and  arbitrary  combinations  which  are 
continually  compelling  notice. 

This  witty  ingenuity  in  devising  unexpected  rimes, 


64  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

which  appears  out  of  place  in  serious  poetry,  is  wholly 
appropriate  in  comic  verse,  where  we  expect  the  writer 
to  amuse  us  with  his  unfailing  cleverness.  We  find  a 
"  source  of  momentary  amusement "  in  the  unexpected 
matings  which  justify  themselves  in  the  "  Ingoldsby 
Legends  "  and  in  the  "  Fable  for  Critics."  Humorous 
verse  of  this  kind  gets  part  of  its  fun  out  of  difficulty 
vanquished ;  and  when  we  hear  the  troublesome  sylla- 
bles at  the  end  of  the  first  line  of  a  couplet,  we  take 
pleasure  in  guessing,  or  at  least  in  wondering,  how 
the  poet  is  going  to  satisfy  us  at  the  end  of  the  second 
line.  Here  the  manner  perhaps  is  almost  as  important 
as  the  matter ;  and  the  mere  mechanism  of  the  light 
poem  can  be  paraded  without  our  losing  any  of  its 
less  significant  meaning.  No  one  can  help  feeling  the 
fun  in  this  couplet  of  Barham's :  — 

There 's  Setebos  storming  because  Mephistopheles 
Dashed  in  his  face  a  whole  cup  of  coffee-lees. 

No  one  can  help  smiling  at  the  wit  in  this  couplet 
of  Byron's  "  Don  Juan  " :  — 

O  ye  lords  of  ladies  intellectual, 

Inform  us  truly,  have  they  not  henpecked  you  all  f 

And  every  one  must  appreciate  the  affluence  of 
ingenuity  which  we  discover  in  Lowell's  "  Fable  for 

Critics  " :  — 

Quite  irresistible 

Like  a  man  with  eight  trumps  in  his  hand  at  a  whist-table 
(I  bethought  me  at  first  that  the  rime  was  untwistable, 
Though  I  might  here  have  lugged  in  an  allusion  to  Cristabel). 

To  get  the  full  effect  of  this  clever  solving  of  a 
self-imposed  difficulty,  the  normal  word  should  end 
the  first  line  and  the  artificial  combination  must  fol- 


RIME  65 

low.  This  is  a  minor  detail,  of  course,  and  it  has  not 
always  been  kept  in  mind  by  luxuriant  rimesters. 
Barham,  for  example,  disregarded  it  in  this  couplet: — 

Should  it  even  set  fire  to  the  castle  and  burn  it,  you1  re 
Amply  insured  both  for  buildings  and  furniture. 

And  Browning  frequently  refused  to  consider  it,  as 
in  this  couplet :  — 

Here  we  get  peace  and  aghast  1  'm 
Caught  thinking  war  the  true  pastime. 

And  again  in  this  quatrain  :  — 

Blue-black,  lustrous,  thick  like  horsehairs, 

—  Can't  I  see  his  dead  eye  glow  ? 
Bright,  as  't  were  a  Barbary  corsair's  t 

(That  is,  if  he  'd  let  it  show  !) 

Perhaps  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  in  comic 
verse  it  is  permissible  to  violate  accent,  to  play  tricks 
with  meter  or  to  alter  orthography.  There  is  an  ele- 
ment of  absurdity  in  Canning's  deliberate  splitting  of 
a  word  to  make  his  rime  :  — 

Sun,  moon,  and  thou,  vain  world,  adieu, 

That  kings  and  priests  are  plotting  in  ; 
Here  doomed  to  starve  on  water-gru- 
el, never  shall  I  see  the  U- 

-niversity  of  Gottingen, 
-niversity  of  Gottingen. 

And  this  exaggerated  device  is  carried  a  step  farther 
in  "  Lewis  Carroll's  " :  — 

Who  would  not  give  all  else  for  tico  p- 
-enny worth  only  of  beautiful  soup  ? 

We  will  forgive  the  humorous  bard  also  if  he 
achieves  his  rime  only  by  deliberate  misspelling :  — 


66  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

A  stingy  old  man  of  Malacca, 

Who  wore  clothes  of  the  thinnest  alpacca, 

Would  remark  with  a  groan : 

"  I  've  a  match  of  my  own  ; 
Will  you  lend  me  a  pipe  and  tobacco  f  " 

Thus  far  rime  has  been  considered  as  terminal 
only,  as  an  ornament  at  the  end  of  a  pair  of  lines. 
But  it  may  also  be  internal,  appearing  within  the  lines, 
to  give  an  added  and  unexpected  pleasure  to  the  ear. 
This  internal  rime  is  often  quite  distinct  from  the 
terminal  rime  that  plays  along  the  edges  of  the 
stanza.  As  satisfactory  an  example  as  any  is  this  of 
Scott's :  — 

There  was  racing  and  chasing  on  Cannobie  Lee. 
Or  this  of  Swinburne's :  — 

With  changes  of  gladness  and  sadness  that  cheer  and  chide. 
Or  this  of  Swinburne's  again  :  — 

From  afar  to  the  star  that  recedes,  from  anear  to  the  wastes  of 
the  wild  shore. 

Or  this  of  Poe's:  — 
Thrilled  me,  filled  me,  with  fantastic  terror  never  felt  before. 

Internal  rime  is  more  elaborately  employed  in 
these  lines  of  Kipling's  "  McAndrews'  Hymn  " :  — 

An'  home  again,  the  Rio  run  ;  it 's  no  child's  play  to  go 
Steamin'  to  bell  for  fourteen  days  o'  snow  an'_/?oe  an'  blow  — 
The  bergs  like  kelpies  overside  that  girn  and  turn  an'  shift 
Whaur  grindin'  like  the  Mills  o'  God,  goes  by  the  big  South 
drift. 

Here  we  have  the  independent  internal  rimes 
girn  and  turn,  and  also  the  internal  rimes  snow  and 


RIME  07 

floe  that  echo  and  intensify   the  terminal  rimes  go 
and  blow. 

Sometimes  the  internal  rimes  are  in  different  lines, 
as  in  this  couplet  of  Hood's  :  — 

Mad  from  life's  history, 
Glad  to  death's  mystery. 

Or  in  this  quatrain  of  Poe's  "  For  Annie,"  which  is 
metrically  only  two  lines,  although  printed  as  four :  — 

My  tantalized  spirit 

Here  blandly  reposes, 
Forgetting,  or  never 

Regretting  its  roses. 

Or    again    in    this    quatrain    of   Locker-Lampson's 
**  Serenade  " :  — 

Arise  then,  and  lazy 

Regrets  from  thee  fling, 
For  sorrows  that  hazy 

To-morrows  may  bring. 

In  the  stanza  of  Rossetti's  "  Love's  Nocturn  "  there 
is  an  internal  rime  in  the  last  line  which  mates  with 
three  earlier  rimes :  — 

Poets'  fancies  all  are  there : 

There  the  elf-girls  flood  with  wings 

Valleys  full  of  plaintive  air; 

There  breathe  perfumes  ;  there  in  rings 
Whirl  the  foam-bewildered  springs; 

Siren  there, 
Winds  her  dizzy  hair  and  sings. 

Browning  once  employed  the  same  internal  rime 
three  times  in  a  single  line  :  — 

And  stood  by  the  rose-wreathed  gate.  Alas, 

He  loved  sir,  —  used  to  meet: 
How  sad  and  bad  aud  mad  it  was  — 

But  then,  how  it  was  sweet ! 


68  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

And  this  same  rime  Swinburne  chose  to  repeat  fou* 
times  in  a  single  line  of  a  ballade,  and  as  this  line  was 
the  refrain,  it  had  to  be  repeated  four  times. 

Villon,  our  sad  bad  glad  mad  brother's  name. 

This  does  not  commend  itself  to  the  ear ;  it  sounds 
freakish  and  self-conscious.  It  is  a  glaring  patch  of 
wilful  repetition  which  almost  shrieks  aloud  for  recog- 
nition. It  is  aggressively  inartistic  in  a  serious  poem,  al- 
thoughit  might  be  tolerated  and  even  accepted  willingly 
in  a  comic  poem.  Probably  we  should  not  be  moved  to 
protest  if  we  found  it  in  a  lilting  lyric  of  humorous  intent 
like  that  in  which  Eugene  Field  pretended  to  tell  the 
"  Truth  about  Horace  "  and  in  which  we  find  this  speci- 
men of  ultra-ingenuity  in  riming :  — 

With  a  massic-laden  ditty, 
And  a  classic  maiden  pretty, 
He  painted  up  the  city, 

And  Msecenas  paid  the  freight. 

Even  more  complicated  is  the  congeries  of  internal 
and  external  rimes  in  Joaquin  Miller's  "  Lost 
Love":  — 

Thatch  of  palm,  and  patch  of  clover, 

Breath  of  balm,  in  a  field  of  brown ; 
The  clouds  blew  up  and  the  birds  flew  over. 

And  I  looked  upward,  but  who  looked  down  ? 

Who  was  true  in  the  test  that  tried  us  ? 

Who  was  it  mocked  ?  Who  now  may  mourn 
The  loss  of  a  love  that  a  cross  denied  us, 

With  folded  hands  and  a  heart  forlorn  ? 

Sometimes  the  poet  shortens  his  lines  and  multiplies 
his  rimes,  external  and  internal,  to  correspond  to 
the  theme  he  is  treating ;  and  sometimes  he  lengthens 


RIME  69 

his  lines  and  eschews  internal  rime  altogether.  Some- 
times he  contrasts  his  riming  vowels  in  successive 
lines  to  give  variety ;  and  sometimes  he  may  prefer  to 
compose  a  whole  poem  on  the  same  rime.  This  is 
what  H.  C.  Bunner  did  in  his  humorously  pathetic 
"  One,  Two,  Three," 1  in  which  he  adds  to  the  effect 
of  this  recurring  terminal  open  vowel  by  leaving  the 
alternate  lines  entirely  without  rime :  — 

It  was  an  old,  old,  old,  old  lady, 

And  a  boy  who  was  half-past  three; 
And  the  way  that  they  played  together 
Was  beautiful  to  see. 

She  could  n't  go  running  and  jumping, 

And  the  boy,  no  more  could  he, 
For  he  was  a  thin  little  fellow, 

With  a  thin  little  twisted  knee. 

They  sat  in  the  yellow  sunlight, 

Out  under  the  maple  tree ; 
And  the  game  that  they  played  I  '11  tell  you, 

Just  as  it  was  told  to  me. 

It  was  Hide-and-go-Seek  they  were  playing, 
Though  you  'd  never  have  known  it  to  be  — 

Witb  an  old,  old,  old,  old  lady, 
And  a  boy  with  a  twisted  knee. 

The  boy  would  bend  his  face  down 

On  his  one  little  sound  right  knee, 
And  he  'd  guess  where  she  was  hiding, 

In  guesses  One,  Two,  Three  ! 

"  You  are  in  the  china  closet !  " 

He  would  cry  and  laugh  with  glee  — 
It  wasn't  the  china  closet: 

But  he  still  had  Two  and  Three. 

1  By  permission  from  Rowen,  Second  Crop  Songs,  copyright,  1892, 
by  Charles  Scribner'a  Sons. 


70  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

"  You  are  up  in  papa's  big  bedroom, 

In  the  chest  with  the  queer  old  key  ! " 
And  she  said:  "You  are  warm  and  warmer, 
But  you  're  not  quite  right,"  said  she. 

"It  can't  be  the  little  cupboard 

Where  mamma's  things  used  to  be  — 
So  it  must  be  the  clothes  press,  gran'ma," 
And  he  found  her  with  his  Three. 

Then  she  covered  her  face  with  her  fingers, 
They  were  wrinkled  and  white  and  wee, 

And  she  guessed  where  the  boy  was  hiding, 
With  a  One  and  a  Two  and  a  Three. 

And  they  had  never  stirred  from  their  places, 

Right  under  the  maple  tree  — • 
This  old,  old,  old,  old  lady, 

And  the  boy  with  the  lame  little  knee  — 
This  dear,  dear,  dear  old  lady, 

And  the  boy  who  was  half-past  three. 

This  monotony  of  rime  in  the  second  and  fourth 
lines  and  this  absence  of  rime  in  the  first  and  third, 
must  not  be  ascribed  to  any  poverty  of  resource  on 
the  poet's  part ;  we  can  hardly  fail  to  perceive  the 
unity  of  tone  which  has  been  attained  by  these  devices. 
Bunner  felt  instinctively  the  riming  effect  that  would 
best  suit  his  theme.  The  work  of  the  poet  must  be 
conscious  to  some  extent,  but  it  must  also  be  largely 
unconscious,  the  result  of  intuitive  impulse.  In  "  One, 
Two,  Three,"  the  residt  proves  that  the  poet  was  justi- 
fied in  his  feeling  that  he  would  do  well  for  once  to 
ring  the  changes  on  a  single  rime.  But  so  much  can 
scarcely  be  said  for  Browning's  "  In  the  Metidja," 
where  we  find  the  same  device  less  happily  employed. 

Dr.  Holmes  once  declared  that  "  when  a  word  comes 
up  fit  to  end  a  line  with,  I  can/eeZ  all  the  rimes  in 


RIME  71 

the  language  that  are  fit  to  go  with  it  without  naming 
them.  I  have  tried  them  all  so  many  times,  I  know 
all  the  polygamous  words,  and  all  the  monogamous 
ones,  and  all  the  unmarrying  ones  —  the  whole  lot 
that  have  no  mates  —  as  soon  as  I  hear  their  names 
called.  Sometimes  I  run  over  a  string  of  rimes,  but 
generally  speaking  it  is  strange  what  a  short  list  it  is 
of  those  that  are  good  for  anything.  This  is  the  piti- 
ful side  of  all  rimed  verse.  Take  such  words  as  home 
and  world.  What  can  you  do  with  chrome  or  loam  or 
gnome  or  tome  ?  You  have  dome,  foam  and  roam, 
and  not  much  more  to  use  in  your  pome,  as  some  of 
our  fellow  countrymen  call  it.  As  for  world,  you  know 
that  in  all  human  probability  somebody  or  something 
will  be  hurled  into  it  or  out  of  it ;  its  clouds  may  be 
furled  or  its  grass  impearled  ;  possibly  something  may 
be  whirled  or  curled  or  swirled" 

Here  Dr.  Holmes  is  following  in  the  footsteps  of 
Pope,  who  asserted  in  his  "  Essay  on  Criticism  "  that 
the  poetasters  have  little  variety  in  their  verse :  — 

While  they  ring  round  the  same  unvaried  chimes, 
With  sure  returns  of  still  expected  rimes  ; 
Where'er  you  find  "  the  cooling  western  breeze," 
In  the  next  line  it  "  whispers  through  the  trees  "  : 
If  crystal  streams  "  with  pleasing  murmurs  creep," 
The  reader 's  threatened  —  not  in  vain  —  with  "  sleep." 

As  yet  no  one  has  drawn  up  a  complete  catalog  of 
what  Dr.  Holmes  called  the  monogamous  rimes,  those 
which  are  fated  to  marry  the  same  one  again  and  again, 
because  there  is  absolutely  no  other  mate  for  them 
in  our  language,  such  as  anguish,  blackness,  moun- 
tain, and  winter.  Of  those  words  which  are  con- 
demned to  absolute  celibacy,  the  old  maids  of  poetry, 


72  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

because  there  is  not  a  single  suitor  for  them,  there 
must  be  two  or  three  score  at  least.  Here  are  some  of 
them:  April,  August,  chimney,  coif,  crimson,  forest, 
kiln,  microcosm,  month,  nothing,  open,  poet,  rhomb, 
scarce,  scarf,  silver,  statue,  squirrel,  temple,  widow, 
window. 


CHAPTER  V 

TONE-COLOR 

We  must  not  only  choose  our  words  for  elegance,  but  for  sound,  — 
to  perform  •which  a  mastery  in  the  language  is  required ;  the  poet 
must  have  a  magazine  of  words,  and  have  the  art  to  manage  his  few 
vowels  to  the  best  advantage,  that  they  may  go  the  farther.  He 
must  also  know  the  nature  of  the  vowels  —  which  are  more  sonorous, 
and  which  more  soft  and  sweet  —  and  so  dispose  them  as  his  present 
occasions  require.  —  DBYDEN  :  Discourse  on  Epic  Poetry. 

THE  province  of  rime  is  twofold ;  its  primary  pur- 
pose is  to  emphasize  the  architecture  of  the  poem,  to 
indicate  the  ends  of  the  lines,  and  to  bind  up  the 
couplet,  the  quatrain  or  the  longer  stanza  into  a  har- 
monious unit ;  and  it  has  the  secondary  duty  of  pleas- 
ing the  ear  by  its  own  sound.  The  ear  finds  unending 
delight  in  the  melody  which  is  the  result  of  the  adroit 
commingling  of  rhythm  and  rime  so  as  not  merely 
to  carry  the  meaning  of  the  poet,  but  also  to  intensify 
this  meaning  by  the  choice  and  by  the  contrast  of  the 
sounds  which  convey  it.  As  Pope  asserted  in  his 
"Essay  on  Criticism"  :  — 

True  ease  in  writing  comes  from  art,  not  chance, 

As  those  move  easiest  who  have  learned  to  dance. 

'T  is  not  enough  no  harshness  gives  offence, 

The  sound  must  seem  an  echo  to  the  sense. 

Soft  is  the  strain  when  zephyr  gently  blows, 

And  the  smooth  .stream  in  smoother  numbers  flows  ; 

But  when  loud  surges  lash  the  sounding  shore, 

The  hoarse  rough  verse  should  like  the  torrent  roar ; 

When  Ajax  strives  some  rock's  vast  might  to  throw, 

The  line,  too,  labors,  and  the  words  move  slow. 


74  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Not  so,  when  swift  Camilla  scours  the  plain, 

Flies  o'er  the  unbending  corn,  and  skims  along  the  main. 

Here  Pope  artfully  conformed  his  practice  to  his 
preaching.  This  adjustment  of  the  sound  to  the  sense 
can  be  accomplished  by  a  variety  of  devices ;  and  it  is 
now  generally  known  as  tone-color.  It  will  be  noted 
that  Pope  was  careful  in  the  selection  of  his  rimes, 
ever  the  most  salient  words.  Roar  and  shore,  throw 
and  slow,  at  the  ends  of  two  of  his  couplets  are  exactly 
the  right  words  to  convey  the  desired  impression. 

But  it  is  not  enough  that  the  rimes  shall  be  well 
chosen ;  they  ought  to  be  varied  one  from  the  other. 
A  quatrain  or  a  stanza  has  a  weak,  thin  effect  upon 
the  ear  if  the  vowel-sounds  in  the  several  rimes  are 
either  identical  or  too  clearly  akin.  For  example,  sight 
and  light,  glide  and  abide  would  not  be  satisfactory 
rimes  in  the  same  quatrain,  since  the  ear  would  have 
to  strain  to  distinguish  sharply  between  the  two  pairs 
of  words.  "The  result,"  as  Lanier  declared,  "is  like 
two  contiguous  shades  of  pink  in  a  dress;  one  of  the 
rimes  will  seem  faded."  This  is  a  defect  which  we  can 
discover  even  in  Swinburne,  who  is  a  master  metrist, 
commanding  sounds  at  will  to  work  his  magic :  — 

Where  shall  we  find  her,  how  shall  we  sing  to  7ier, 

Fold  our  hands  round  her  knees  and  cling  ? 
O  that  man's  heart  were  as  fire  and  could  spring  to  her, 
Fire,  or  the  strength  of  the  streams  that  spring. 

Here,  in  fact,  there  is  not  only  identity  of  rime, 
but  identity  of  the  actual  riming  word  in  the  third 
and  fourth  lines,  spring  to  her  and  spring. 

Set  this  with  its  monotony  beside  another  chorus 
from  the  same  dramatic  poem,  "  Atalauta  in  Calydon," 


TONE-COLOR  75 

and  observe  how  much  force  is  gained  by  the  opposi- 
tion of  the  vowel-sounds  in  the  rimes :  — 

Before  the  beginning  of  the  years, 
There  came  to  the  making  of  man 

Time,  with  a  gift  of  tears; 
Grief,  with  a  glass  that  ran. 

Strength  without  hands  to  smite; 

Love  that  endures  for  a  breath; 
Night,  the  shadow  of  light, 

And  life,  the  shadow  of  death. 

Sometimes  the  tone-color  is  aided  by  shortening  one 
of  the  two  successive  riming  lines  so  that  the  echo 
of  the  sound  is  more  immediate.  Here  is  an  example 
in  single  rime  taken  from  Browning's  "  Love  among 
the  Ruins  "  :  — 

Where  the  quiet-colored  end  of  evening  smiles 

Miles  and  miles 
On  the  solitary  pastures  where  our  sheep 

Half  asleep 
Tinkle  homeward  through  the  twilight,  stray  or  stop 

As  they  crop. 

And  here  is  another  example  in  double  rime  by 
Austin  Dobson,  written  really  in  anapestic  tetrameter, 
but  so  divided  that  it  falls  on  our  ears  as  alternating 
trimeter  and  monometer  riming  together,  and  gain- 
ing much  of  its  buoyancy  from  the  dexterity  of  its 
double  rimes  :  — • 

In  our  hearts  is  the  Great  One  of  Avon 

Engraven, 
And  we  climb  the  cold  summits  once  built  on 

By  Milton. 
But  at  times  not  the  air  that  is  rarest 

Is  fairest ; 


T6  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

And  we  long  in  the  valley  to  follow 

Apollo. 
Then  we  drop  from  the  heights  atmospheric 

To  Herrick, 
Or  we  pour  the  Greek  honey,  grown  blander, 

Of  Landor ; 
Or  our  coziest  nook  in  the  shade  is 

Where  Praed  is, 
Or  we  toss  the  light  bells  of  the  mocker 

With  Locker. 
Oh,  the  song  where  not  one  of  the  Graces 

Tight-laces,  — 
Where  we  woo  the  sweet  Muses  not  starchly, 

But  archly,  — 
Where  the  verse,  like  a  piper  a-Maying, 

Comes  playing  — 
And  the  rime  is  as  gay  as  a  dancer 

In  answer,  — 
It  will  last  till  men  weary  of  pleasure 

In  measure  ! 
It  will  last  till  men  weary  of  laughter  .  .  . 

And  after ! 

In  Browning's  "  Love  among  the  Ruins,"  the  rimes 
tfere  all  single,  and  in  Austin  Dobson's  "  Jocosa  Lyra," 
the  rimes  were  all  double;  and  in  both  cases  this 
decision  was  justified  by  the  r,esult.  Often,  however,  an 
admirable  effect  is  attained  by  alternating  single  and 
double  rimes,  with  due  regard  to  the  rich  contrast 
of  the  vowel-sounds  that  are  interlinked,  as  in  this 
stanza  of  Swinburne's :  — 

The  songs  of  dead  seasons,  that  wander 

On  wings  of  articulate  words; 
Lost  leaves  that  the  shore-wind  may  squander, 

Light  flocks  of  untamable  birds ; 
Some  sang  to  me  dreaming  in  class  time 

And  truant  in  hand  as  in  tongue; 
For  the  youngest  were  born  of  boy's  pastime, 

The  eldest  are  young. 


TONE-COLOR  77 

In  this  there  is  an  added  felicity  in  the  unexpected 
shortening  of  the  final  line  of  the  stanza.  Sometimes 
however  a  poet  gains  an  effect  by  ending  his  stanza 
with  a  full  line  terminating  in  a  bold  single  rime, 
preceded  by  shorter  lines  with  double  rimes.  Here 
is  an  illustration  from  Longfellow's  "  Seaweed  "  which 
exemplifies  the  superb  mating  of  sound  and  sense :  — 

When  descends  on  the  Atlantic 

The  gigantic 

Storm-wind  of  the  equinox, 
Landward  in  his  wrath  he  scourges 

The  toiling  surges, 
Laden  with  seaweed  from  the  rocks  ; 

From  Bermuda's  reefs  ;  from  edges 

Of  sunken  ledges, 
In  some  far-off,  bright  Azore; 
From  Bahama,  and  the  dashing, 

Silver-flashing 
Surges  of  San  Salvador  ; 

From  the  tumbling  surf,  that  buries 

The  Orkneyan  skerries, 
Answering  the  hoarse  Hebrides  ; 
And  from  wrecks  of  ships,  and  drifting 

Spars,  uplifting 
On  the  desolate,  rainy  seas  ;  — 

Ever  drifting,  drifting,  drifting 

On  the  shifting 

Currents  of  the  restless  main  ; 
Till  in  sheltered  coves,  and  reaches 

Of  sandy  beaches, 
All  have  found  repose  again. 

Often  there  is  advantage  in  not  having  the  rim- 
ing words  too  closely  alike ;  light  and  slight,  for  ex- 
ample, are  perfectly  proper  rimes ;  but  there  would 


78  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

be  more  variety  if  light  were  linked  with  sight  and 
slight  with  fright.  And  yet  sometimes  the  poet  finds 
his  effect  in  using  rimes  which  have  just  this  simi- 
larity, as  in  a  stanza  of  the  "  Village  Blacksmith  "  :  — 

Week  in,  week  out,  from  morn  till  night, 

You  can  hear  his  bellows  blow  • 
You  can  hear  him  swing  his  heavy  sledge, 

With  measured  beat  and  slow, 
Like  a  sexton  ringing  the  village  bell, 

When  the  evening  sun  is  low. 

Perhaps  something  of  the  largeness  of  this  stanza 
of  Longfellow's  is  due  to  the  triple  repetition  of  the 
same  riming  vowel  and  to  the  absence  of  rime  in  the 
first,  third  and  fifth  lines,  whereby  he  avoids  a  jin- 
gling jigginess. 

As  the  skilful  lyrist  may  rime  all  his  lines  or  may 
refuse  to  rime  some  of  them  in  accord  with  his  in- 
stinct for  the  better  way,  and  as  he  may  commingle 
double  and  single  rimes,  placing  each  just  where  he 
feels  that  it  will  be  most  effective,  so  he  varies  his 
choice,  now  using  words  of  a  single  syllable  and  then 
preferring  ampler  vocables.  In  Pope's  day,  there  was  a 
prejudice  against  the  monosyllable  which  is  voiced  in 
a  line  of  the  "  Essay  on  Criticism  "  :  — 

And  ten  low  words  oft  creep  in  one  dull  line. 

But  more  than  one  poet  has  been  able  so  to  handle 
lines  composed  almost  wholly  of  monosyllables  that  he 
has  not  only  avoided  dulness  but  attained  to  a  mas- 
sive dignity  of  utterance.  Consider,  for  example,  these 
lines  of  Milton's :  — 

Tell  me,  how  may  I  know  Him,  how  adore, 
From  whom  I  have  that  thus  I  move  and  live  ? 


TONE-COLOR  79 

And  also   this   simple  speech  of  Shakspere's  where 
King  John  is  suggesting  the  murder  of  Arthur :  — 

Good  friend,  tbou  hast  no  cause  to  say  so  yet ; 
But  thou  shalt  have  ;  and  creep  time  ne'er  so  slow, 
Yet  it  shall  come,  for  me  to  do  thee  good. 
I  had  a  thing  to  say  ;  —  but  let  it  go. 

Professor  Corson,  dwelling  on  Shakspere's  mastery 
of  the  monosyllable,  declared  that  "  deep  feeling  of 
every  kind  expresses  itself  through,  and  indeed,  at- 
tracts to  itself,  the  monosyllabic  words  of  the  lan- 
guage ;  not  only  because  such  words  are,  for  the  most 
part,  Anglo-Saxon,  and  therefore  more  consecrated  to 
feeling  than  to  thought,  but  because  the  staccato  effect 
which  can  be  secured  through  them  rather  than  through 
dissyllabic  and  trisyllabic  words,  subserves  well  the 
natural  movement  of  impassioned  speech." 

Addison  Alexander  once  composed  two  sonnets  in 
which  he  set  forth,  and  at  the  same  time  exemplified, 
the  "  Power  of  Short  Words  "  :  — 

Think  not  that  strength  lies  in  the  big  round  word, 

Or  that  the  brief  and  plain  must  needs  be  weak. 
To  whom  can  this  be  true  who  once  has  heard 

The  cry  for  help,  the  tongue  that  all  men  speak, 
When  want  or  woe  or  fear  is  in  the  throat, 

So  that  each  word  gasped  out  is  like  a  shriek 
Pressed  from  the  sore  heart,  or  a  strange  wild  note 

Sung  by  some  far-off  fiend  ?  There  is  a  strength 
Which  dies  if  stretched  too  far  or  spun  too  fine, 

Which  has  more  height  than  breadth,  more  depth  than  length. 
Let  but  this  force  of  thought  and  speech  be  mine, 

And  he  that  will  may  take  the  sleek  fat  phrase 
Which  glows  and  burns  not,  though  it  gleam  and  shine,  — 

Light,  but  no  heat,  —  a  flash,  but  not  a  blaze  I 

Nor  is  it  mere  strength  that  the  short  word  boasts  : 
It  serves  of  more  than  fight  or  storm  to  tell, 


80  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

The  roar  of  waves  that  dash  on  rock-bound  coasts, 

The  crash  of  tall  trees  when  the  wild  winds  swell) 
The  roar  of  guns,  the  groans  of  men  that  die 

On  blood-stained  fields.  It  has  a  voice  as  well 
For  them  that  far  off  on  their  sick  beds  lie  ; 

For  them  that  weep,  for  them  that  mourn  the  dead  ; 
For  them  that  laugh  and  dance  and  clap  the  hand  ; 

To  joy's  quick  step,  as  well  as  grief's  slow  tread, 
The  sweet,  plain  words  we  learnt  at  first  keep  time, 

And  though  the  theme  be  sad,  or  gay,  or  grand, 
With  each,  with  all,  these  may  be  made  to  chime, 
/      In  thought,  or  speech,  or  soug,  or  prose,  or  rime. 

In  Gascoigne's  "  Certain  Notes  of  Instruction  con- 
cerning  the  Making  of  Verse,"  we  are  told  that  "  the 
most  ancient  words  are  of  one  syllable,  so  that  the  more 
monosyllables  you  use,  the  truer  Englishman  you  shall 
seem,  and  the  less  you  shall  smell  of  the  ink-horn." 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  strength  also  in  the  poly- 
syllable, as  when  Shakspere  writes :  — 

No,  this  my  hand  will  rather 

The  multitudinous  seas  incarnadine. 

In  comic  verse,  the  use  of  the  polysyllable  is  often 
most  amusing,  as  in  the  couplet  of  a  humorous  ballad 
about  a  certain  hypocritical  lord  whom  his  attendants 

found 

beneath  the  table  sunk, 
Problematically  pious  but  indubitably  drunk. 

There  is  profit  in  varying  words  of  one  syllable  and 
of  two  with  infrequent  words  of  three  syllables,  as  in 
this  stanza  of  "A  Revolutionary  Relic"  by  Austin 
Dobson :  — 

Did  she  turn  with  sight  swift-dimming, 

And  the  quivering  lip  we  know, 
With  the  full,  slow  eye-lid  brimming, 
With  the  languorous  pupil  swimming 
Like  the  love  of  Mirabeau  ? 


TONE-COLOR  81 

In  another  stanza  of  the  same  lyric,  we  find  only  one 
trisyllable  in  the  five  lines,  the  rest  of  the  words  hav- 
ing been  almost  equally  divided  between  monosyllables 
and  dissyllables :  — 

Wailing,  wailing,  as  the  plover 

Waileth,  wheeleth,  desolate, 
Heedless  of  the  hawk  above  her, 
While  as  yet  the  rushes  cover, 

Wauing  fast,  her  wounded  mate. 

And  in  this  last  stanza  there  is  another  point  to 
be  observed  —  the  repetition  of  the  sound  which 
begins  the  first,  second  and  fifth  lines,  the  sound  of 
way.  We  may  remark  also  that  in  the  third  line  two 
words,  both  of  them  long,  heedless  and  hawk,  begin 
with  the  same  letter.  This  is  the  device  which  is 
known  as  alliteration,  the  repetition  of  the  same  initial 
consonant.  Alliteration,  as  an  aid  to  rhythm,  is  histori- 
cally earlier  than  rime ;  indeed,  it  is  a  kind  of  in- 
complete rime  at  the  beginning  of  a  line.  It  is  very 
prevalent  in  primitive  poetry ;  and  it  was  accepted  by 
Wagner  as  preferable  to  rime  for  lyrics  intended  to 
be  set  to  music.  Wagner  held  that  "  rime  is  useless 
in  music  because  it  implies  identity  not  only  of  vowel- 
sounds  but  also  of  the  succeeding  consonants,"  which 
are  lost  to  the  listener  by  the  singer's  need  of  dwell- 
ing on  the  vowel  alone,  whereas  the  initial  consonant 
cannot  be  lost,  "  because  it  is  that  which  stamps  its 
physiognomy  on  a  word."  As  the  repetition  of  the 
same  sound  in  a  series  of  initial  consonants  creates 
"  a  sort  of  musical  cadence  which  is  agreeable  to  the 
ear,"  Wagner  desired  alliteration  to  be  substituted 
for  rime.  For  this  preference  the  composer  had  a  rea- 
son sufficient  to  himself ;  but  in  poetry,  which  is  sup- 


82  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

posed  to  be  spoken  rather  than  sung,  rime  is  held  to 
be  more  effective ;  and  alliteration  has  been  reserved 
as  an  occasional  accessory  to  be  employed  sparingly 
and  unobtrusively. 

Here  are  two  striking  examples  of  the  obtrusive  use 
of  alliteration,  taken  from  Poe  arid  from  the  British 
poet  who  learned  much  from  the  American  lyrist,  and 
who  often  bettered  his  teaching.  In  his  "  Ulaluine  " 
Poe  informs  us  that  his  shadowy  heroine  has 

Come  up  through  the  lair  of  the  lion, 
With  love  in  her  luminous  eyes. 

And  in  one  of  his  earlier  lyrics,  Swinburne  contrasts 

violently 

The  lilies  and  languors  of  virtue, 
The  raptures  and  roses  of  vice. 

In  another  lyric,  "  A  Child's  Daughter,"  the  same 
British  poet  "hunts  the  letter"  even  more  emphati- 
cally:— 

All  the  bells  of  heaven  may  ring, 
All  the  birds  of  heaven  may  sing, 
All  the  wells  on  earth  may  spring, 
All  the  winds  on  earth  may  bring 

All  sweet  sounds  together  ; 
Sweeter  far  than  all  things  heard, 
Hand  of  harper,  tone  of  bird, 
Sound  of  woods  at  sundavm  stirred, 
Welling  waters,  winsome  word, 
Wind  in  warm,  wan  weather. 

Here  our  attention  is  taken  from  off  the  matter  and 
called  strenuously  to  the  manner.  Our  ear  begins  to 
count  the  number  of  alliterations,  to  expect  them  and 
to  wonder  at  them ;  and  while  it  is  doing  this,  it  is 
likely  to  fail  to  catch  the  poet's  meaning.  If  we  once 
begin  to  notice  tricks  of  method,  we  shall  not  appro 


TONE-COLOR  83 

hend  the  message.  If  we  fall  to  admiring  the  poet's 
dexterity  in  juggling  with  sounds,  we  shall  not  really 
listen  to  what  he  is  talking  about — and  perhaps  we 
shall  not  care.  If  this  is  the  case,  the  verbal  artist  has 
plainly  overreached  himself.  He  has  constructed  his  or- 
nament instead  of  ornamenting  his  construction.  He 
has  allowed  the  minor  matter  of  style  to  interfere  with 
the  major  matter  of  substance.  As  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 
said,  "  the  value  and  rank  of  every  art  is  in  proportion 
to  the  mental  labor  employed  in  it  or  the  mental  pleas- 
ure produced  by  it.  As  this  principle  is  observed  or 
neglected  a  profession  becomes  either  a  liberal  art  or  a 
mechanical  trade."  And  in  another  place  Reynolds  in- 
sisted that "  art  in  its  perfection  is  unostentatious ;  it  lies 
hid  and  worka  its  effects,  itself  unseen." 

When  we  seek  to  discover  why  Poe's  lines  and  Swin- 
burne's produce  this  unforeseen  and  unfortunate  effect, 
we  perceive  that  the  four  Fa  in  the  American  poem  and 
the  two  r's,  the  two  Fs  and  the  two  v's  in  the  British 
poem  are  all  of  them  initials  of  long  syllables,  of  sylla- 
bles which  have  an  emphatic  accent,  so  that  they  im- 
press themselves  most  forcibly  upon  the  ear.  Contrast 
the  two  lines  of  Poe  and  the  two  lines  of  Swinburne 
with  these  two  lines  of  Tennyson: — 

The  moan  of  doves  in  immemorial  elms 
And  murmur  of  innumerable  bees. 

Here  are  actually  eight  ra's;  and  yet  they  achieve 
their  soothing  effect  without  projecting  themselves  into 
»ur  consciousness  and  without  in  any  way  arresting  the 
current  of  our  interest.  There  they  are,  and  we  may 
count  them  at  our  leisure  if  we  choose;  but  they  do 
not  cry  aloud  for  immediate  recognition  when  the  lines 


84  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

fall  on  our  ears.  While  some  of  these  ra's  are  initials 
of  long  feet,  most  of  them  are  more  cunningly  com- 
mingled  with  the  three  Z's,  with  the  three  repetitions 
of  the  u  sound  (for  that  is  heard  also  in  doves),  and 
with  the  two  long  o's  in  the  first  line.  Where  Poe  and 
Swinburne  have  vaunted  their  virtuosity,  proudly  pa- 
rading it,  Tennyson  has  subtly  hidden  his  far  more 
delicate  art.  Sometimes  Tennyson,  when  he  feels  the 
need,  dares  a  bolder  alliteration :  — 

Where  with  puffed  cheek  the  belted  hunter  blew 
His  wreathed  bugle-horn. 

And  Browning  makes  use  of  like  words  for  a  like 
purpose :  — 

That  bubble  they  were  bent  on  blowing  big, 
He  had  blown  already  till  he  burst  his  cheeks. 

In  the  following  four  lines  Bunner  has  only  two  initial 
Ts  and  w?'s,  but  another  I  and  another  w  are  unobtru- 
sively effective  while  the  third  line  is  sustained  by  three 
long  o's  contrasted  with  r's :  — 

I  dwell  in  a  land  of  winter, 

From  my  love  a  world  apart  — 
But  the  snow  blooms  over  with  rosea 

At  the  thought  of  her  in  my  heart. 

The  result  justified  frank  initial  alliteration  in  these 
lines  of  Shakspere's :  — 

The  churlish  chiding  of  the  winter  wind. 
In  maiden  meditation,  fancy  free. 

And  also  in  these  of  Coleridge's :  — 

The  fair  breeze  blew,  the  white  foam  flew, 
The  furrow  followed  free. 


TONE-COLOR  85 

Yet  in  this  last  example  the  repeated  y's,  all  at  the 
beginning  of  long  syllables,  are  perilously  near  to  the 
danger-line  where  they  might  divert  the  reader's  mind 
from  the  story  he  was  hearing  to  the  technic  of  the 
story-teller.  There  is  profit  in  setting  this  by  the  side 
of  a  marvelously  adroit  interweaving  of  complemen- 
tary and  contrasted  sounds  in  this  exquisitely  musical 
passage  of  Tennyson's  "  Princess  " :  — 

The  babe  that  by  us, 

Half-lapt  in  glowing  gauze  and  golden  brede, 
Lay  like  a  new-fall'n  meteor  on  the  grass, 
Uncared  for,  spied  its  mother  and  began 
A  blind  and  babbling  laughter,  and  to  dance 
Its  body,  and  reach  its  fatling  innocent  arms 
And  lazy  ling'ring  fingers. 

This  fragment  of  Tennyson's  is  more  elaborately 
wrought  than  this  of  Milton's,  in  which  however  there 
is  the  same  intermittent  play  of  alliteration,  changing 
its  letter  from  line  to  line :  — 

And  ever,  against  eating  cares, 

Lap  me  in  soft  Lydian  airs, 

Married  to  immortal  verse, 

Such  as  the  meeting  soul  may  pierce, 

In  notes  with  many  a  winding  bout 

Of  linked  sweetness  long  drawn  out 

With  wanton  heed  and  giddy  cunning, 

The  melting  voice  through  mazes  running, 

Untwisting  all  the  .chains  that  tie 

The  hidden  Soul  of  Harmony. 

Perhaps  there  is  no  passage  of  Shakspere  more  cun- 
ningly contrived  with  a  varied  play  of  repeated  and 
contrasted  consonants  than  the  description  of  Cleopa- 
tra's descent  of  the  Nile:  — 


86  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

The  barge  she  sat  in,  like  a  burnished  throne, 

Burn'd  on  the  water:  the  poop  was  beaten  gold; 

Purple  the  sails,  and  so  perfumed  that 

The  winds  were  love-sick  with  them  ;  the  oars  were  silver, 

Which  to  the  tune  of  flutes  kept  stroke,  and  made 

The  water  which  they  beat  to  follow  faster, 

As  amorous  of  their  strokes. 

If  we  reserve  alliteration  to  describe  the  recurring 
of  the  same  sound  as  the  initial  of  words  or  of  long 
syllables,  then  we  need  another  terra  for  the  recurrence 
of  the  same  sound  in  the  less  emphatic  places  in  the 
line.  "  Colliteration,"  a  word  which  has  been  proposed 
by  Bliss  Carman,  seems  to  be  excellent  for  the  pur- 
pose, since  it  suggests  at  once  the  close  relation  be- 
tween it  and  alliteration  and  yet  points  out  the  differ- 
ence. Colliteration,  then,  has  this  advantage  over 
alliteration,  that  it  is  less  obvious,  that  it  forces  itself 
less  upon  the  hearer's  attention,  that  it  conveys  a 
gentler  pleasure  to  the  ear  while  concealing  the  source 
of  this  gratification.  Alliteration  braves  the  spot- 
light of  publicity,  while  Colliteration  modestly  shrinks 
from  the  glare  of  self-display.  These  two  lines  of 
Browning's  have  been  used  to  illustrate  the  delicate 
effects  of  adroit  Colliteration :  — 

But  I  know  not  any  tone 
So  fit  as  thine  to  falter  forth  a  sorrow. 

As  Richard  Hovey  pointed  out,  the  repeated  fa 
(Jit,  falter,  forth)  are  a  true  alliteration  in  that  they 
are  the  initials  of  long  syllables  and  get  the  full  force 
of  three  beats  out  of  the  five  in  the  line.  The  ^-sounds 
(t  in  but,  not,  tone,  fit,  to  and  -ter,  and  th  in  thine,  and 
forth)  are  scattered  indiscriminately,  three  falling  in 
short  syllables,  three  on  the  ends  of  long  syllables, 


TONE-COLOR  87 

and  two  only  (and  these  not  exactly  the  same,  t  in 
tone  and  th  in  thine)  on  the  beginnings  of  long  sylla- 
bles. "  The  result  of  this  scattering  is  that  they  do 
not  catch  the  ear  as  the  alliterating  fa  do  ;  but  they 
do  unconsciously  impress  the  mind  with  a  sense  of  a 
prevailing  color."  Again,  the  w's  (know,  not,  any, 
tone,  thine)  form  a  colliterating  group  with  a  slight 
associated  alliteration  (the  final  TI'S  of  tone  and  thine^ 
which  strongly  affect  the  beat). 

It  needs  to  be  noted  that  alliteration  and  collitera- 
tion  have  nothing  to  do  with  spelling,  since  our  chaotic 
orthography  allows  almost  every  single  sound  of  our 
language  to  be  represented  by  a  variety  of  different 
symbols.  The  sound  of  u  in  burn,  for  example,  is 
represented  by  every  other  vowel  in  earn,  journey, 
firm,  myrrh.  To  the  ear  this  is  true  alliteration,  al- 
though the  eye  may  not  always  discover  the  identity 
of  sound. 

The  too  frequent  recurrence  of  the  same  vowel- 
sound  may  be  fatiguing,  as  Lanier  illustrated  by  two 
lines  which  he  made  as  atrocious  as  possible  in  order 
to  set  the  fault  forth  clearly :  — 

'Tis  May-day  gay  ;  wide-smiling  skies  shine  bright, 
Through  whose  true  blue  cuckoos  do  woo  anew. 

The  assertion  has  been  made  that  Browning  strove 
ever  to  avoid  the  repetition  of  the  same  vowel-sound 
in  a  single  line.  If  he  did  act  on  this  principle,  he  de- 
prived himself  of  a  valuable  means  of  securing  tone- 
color.  We  may  feel  that  the  reecho  of  the  same 
vowel-sound  in  Byron's 

Oh,  we  '11  go  no  more  &-roving 
is  perhaps  a  little  too  bold  and  direct.  But  Poe's  in- 


88  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

tentional  repetition  of  the  same  sound  in  three  lines 
of  "  The  Bells  "  is  admirable  in  its  carrying  out  of  the 
purpose  of  the  poem :  — 

From  the  molten-golden  notes, 

And  all  in  tune, 
What  a  liquid  ditty  floats. 

And  there  is  the  same  bold  use  of  the  same  open 
vowels,  a  luxurious  symphony,  in  two  quatrains  of 
Andrew  Lang's  "  Twilight  on  Tweed  "  :  — 

A  mist  of  memory  broods  and  floats, 

The  border  waters  flow  ; 
The  air  is  full  of  ballad  notes, 

Borne  out  of  long  ago. 

Old  songs  that  sung  themselves  to  me, 
Sweet  through  a  boy's  day-dream, 

While  trout  below  the  blossom'd  tree 
Flashed  in  the  golden  stream. 

There  is  a  deliberate  expressiveness  not  otherwise 
attainable  in  Tennyson's 

Laborious  orient  ivory  sphere  in  sphere. 

Not  in  the  same  line,  indeed,  but  in  three  consecu- 
tive lines,  does  Shakspere  employ  a  triple  repetition 
of  the  long  i  sound :  — 

In  such  a  night 

Stood  .Dt'do  with  a  willow  in  her  hand, 
Upon  the  wild  sea  banks,  and  waft  her  love 
To  come  again  to  Carthage. 

Here  we  may  note  also  the  alliteration  of  the  three 
w's  (loillow,  wild,  and  waff)  and  of  the  two  c's  (come 
and  Carthage),  as  well  as  the  colliteration  of  the  u 
sound  (love  and  come).  And  Pope  got  a  certain  effect 


TONE-COLOR  89 

by  repeating  a  vowel-consonant  combination  in  his 
second  line :  — 

If  nature  Sundered  in  our  opening  ears 
And  stunned  us  with  the  music  of  the  spheres. 

The  same  kind  of  imitative  harmony  is  to  be  found 
in  Whitcomb  Kiley's  "  When  the  Frost  is  on  the 
Punkin,"  especially  in  these  two  lines :  — 

The  husky,  rusty  rustle  of  the  tossels  of  the  corn, 

And  the  rashiu'  of  the  tangled  leaves,  as  golden  as  the  morn. 

English  is  a  language  sibilant  beyond  all  others ; 
and  it  is  not  easy  for  our  poets  to  avoid  making  lines 
which  hiss  unpleasantly.  It  was  in  the  effort  to  escape 
from  this  danger  that  an  anonymous  bard  was  moved 
to  compose  this  "  Song  without  a  Sibilant "  : — 

Oh  !  come  to-night  ;  for  naught  can  charm 

The  weary  time  when  thou  'rt  away. 
Oh  !  come  ;  the  gentle  moon  hath  thrown 

O'er  bower  and  hall  her  quivering  ray. 
The  heatherbell  hath  mildly  flung 

From  off  her  fairy  leaf  the  bright 
And  diamond  dewdrop  that  had  hung 

Upon  that  leaf  —  a  gem  of  light. 
Then  come,  love,  come  ! 

To-night  the  liquid  wave  hath  not  — 

Illumined  by  the  moonlit  beam 
Playing  upon  the  lake  beneath, 

Like  frolic  in  an  Autumn  dream  — 
The  liquid  wave  hath  not,  to-night, 

In  all  her  moonlight  pride,  a  fair 
Gift  like  to  them  that  on  thy  lip 

Do  breathe  and  laugh,  and  home  it  there. 
Then  come,  love,  come  ! 

To-night,  to-night,  my  gentle  one, 
The  flower-bearing  Amra  tree 


90  ,  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Doth  long,  with  fragrant  moan,  to  meet 

The  love-lip  of  the  honey-bee. 
But  not  the  Amra  tree  can  long 

To  greet  the  bee,  at  evening  light, 
With  half  the  deep,  fond  love  I  long 

To  meet  my  Nama  here  to-night. 
Then  come,  love,  come  ! 

Tennyson  held  it  essential  that  the  poet  should  have 
a  fine  ear  for  vowel-sounds  and  an  ability  to  kick  "  the 
geese  out  of  the  boat,"  that  is,  to  avoid  sibilations. 
He  declared  that  he  "  never  put  two  s's  together  in 
any  verse  of  mine.  My  line  is  not,  as  often  quoted, 

And  freedom  broadens  slowly  down, 
but 

And  freedom  slowly  broadens  down." 

In  laying  down  this  rule,  Tennyson  was  refining 
upon  the  practice  of  Shakspere,  who  unhesitatingly 
ends  one  word  with  an  s  and  begins  the  next  with  the 
same  sound :  — 

The  multitudinous  seas  incarnadine. 

The  air  bites  shrewdly  ;  it  is  very  cold. 

But  that  our  loves  and  comforts  should  increase. 

I  am  thy  father's  spirit. 

This  liberty  of  Shakspere's  is  the  more  significant, 
because  these  quotations  are  all  taken  from  his  plays, 
where  every  line  was  intended  to  be  spoken.  Yet 
Tennyson's  insistence  upon  the  high  standard  of  avoid- 
ing the  succession  of  s's  is  evidence  that  he  kept  in 
mind  always  the  effect  of  his  lines  upon  the  ear. 
Tennyson  lacks  the  large  affluence  of  Shakspere ;  his 


TONE-COLOR  91 

art  is  more  timid ;  but  it  is  ever  worthy  of  the  most 
careful  study.  He  was  what  he  called  Catullus,  a 
"  consummate  metrist,"  avid  of  experiment  and  untir- 
ing in  search  of  ultimate  perfection.  Consider,  for  an- 
other example,  how  skilfully  he  colliterates  the  short 
i  sound  with  thin  £'s  and  &'s  to  gain  an  effect  of 
insignificance :  — 

The  little  rift  within  the  lover's  lute, 
Or  little  pitted  speck  in  garnered  fruit, 

in  which  there  are  eight  varied  £'s  and  seven  f  s. 

The  precept  and  the  practice  of  Tennyson  have  left 
a  deep  impress  upon  the  technic  of  all  the  later  verse- 
writers  of  our  language.  His  influence  was  beneficial 
in  raising  the  level  of  technical  accomplishment.  It 
has  made  the  average  versifier  ashamed  of  negligent 
work.  The  lyrists  of  to-day  may  have  only  a  few  burn- 
ing words  to  utter  and  the  torch  of  poesy  may  be 
dimmer  than  a  generation  ago,  because  our  bards  have 
now  no  message  tipped  with  flame  ;  but  they  see  clearly 
while  the  lamp  holds  out  to  burn.  They  know  how  to 
say  what  little  they  may  have  to  say.  As  Tennyson 
himself  asserted  late  in  life, 

All  can  grow  the  flower  now, 
For  all  have  got  the  seed. 

Of  course,  there  is  an  ever-present  danger  that 
manner  may  come  to  be  more  highly  esteemed  than 
matter.  Stedman  was  not  overstating  the  case  when 
he  asserted  that  certain  "  non-creative  writers  lavish 
all  their  ingenuity  upon  decoration  until  it  becomes  a 
vice.  You  cannot  long  disguise  a  lack  of  native  vigor 
by  ornament  and  novel  effects.  Over-decoration  of  late 


92  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

is  the  symptom  of  over-prolonged  devotion  to  the 
technical  side  of  poetry.  All  of  the  countless  effects 
of  technic  are  nothing  without  that  psychical  beauty 
imparted  by  the  true  vitality  —  are  of  less  value  than 
faith  and  works  without  love.  The  vox  humana  must 
be  heard.  That  alone  can  give  quality  to  a  poem ;  the 
most  refined  and  artistic  verse  is  cold  and  forceless 
without  it.  A  soulless  poem  is  a  stained  glass  window 
with  the  light  shining  on  and  not  through  it." 

Yet  it  is  well  to  have  the  instruments  of  the  art 
kept  fit  for  the  service  of  the  truly  creative  poet  when 
he  shall  come.  The  bugle  will  be  ready  to  his  hand, 
when  he  arrives  to  blow  a  mighty  blast.  No  artist 
can  have  too  great  technical  dexterity ;  and  every  art- 
ist must  serve  his  apprenticeship  in  the  workshop, 
learning  his  trade.  In  default  of  the  major  poet,  with 
his  message  for  all  men,  we  can  find  delight  in  the 
dexterity  of  the  minor  poets  and  in  the  skill  with 
which  they  carve  their  cameos.  We  can  take  a  keen 
pleasure  in  the  measured  movement  of  this  stanza  of 
Aldrich's  "Voice  of  the  Sea,"  with  its  certainty  of 
touch,  its  effective  repetitions,  and  its  perfect  adjust- 
ment of  sound  to  sense  :  — 

In  the  hush  of  the  autumn  night 
I  hear  the  voice  of  the  sea, 
In  the  hush  of  the  autumn  night 
It  seems  to  say  to  me  — 
Mine  are  the  winds  above, 
Mine  are  the  caves  below, 
Mine  are  the  dead  of  yesterday 
And  the  dead  of  long  ago. 

We  can  enjoy  also  the  skilful  interweaving  of  rimes, 
the  delicate  play  of  alliteration  and  of  colliteration, 


TONE-COLOR  93 

the  artful  selection  of   thin  vowel-sounds  and  thin 
consonants,  in  these  quatrains  of  Riley's :  — 

When  chirping  crickets  fainter  cry, 

And  pule  stars  blossom  in  the  sky, 

And  twilight's  gloom  has  dimmed  the  bloom 

And  blurred  the  butterfly  ; 

When  locust-blossoms  fleck  the  walk, 
And  up  the  tiger-lily  stalk, 
The  glow-worm  crawls  aud  clings  and  falls 
And  glimmers  down  the  garden  walls. 

And  it  is  well  now  and  then  to  study  a  masterpiece 
of  poetry,  like  Tennyson's  "  Crossing  the  Bar,"  and 
examine  its  workmanship,  if  we  wish  to  convince  our- 
selves anew  that  content  and  form  are  Siamese  twins, 
after  all,  and  that  one  cannot  exist  without  the  other, 
born  at  the  same  moment :  — 

Sunset  and  evening  star, 

And  one  clear  call  for  me  1 
And  may  there  be  no  moaning  of  the  bar, 

When  I  put  out  to  sea, 

But  such  a  tide  as  moving  seems  asleep, 

Too  full  for  sound  and  foam, 
When  that  which  drew  from  out  the  boundless  deep 

Turns  again  home. 

Twilight  and  evening  bell, 

And  after  that  the  dark  ! 
And  may  there  be  no  sadness  of  farewell, 

When  I  embark  ; 

For  tho'  from  out  our  bourne  of  Time  and  Place 

The  flood  may  bear  me  far, 
I  hope  to  see  my  Pilot  face  to  face 

When  I  have  crost  the  bar. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  set  a  more  profitable  task  be- 
fore any  student  than  to  ask  him  to  take  this  lovely 


94  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

lyric  apart  and  to  discover  how  much  of  its  ineffable 
and  intangible  beauty  is  due  to  the  poet's  artistry,  to 
his  mastery  of  alliteration  and  colliteration,  to  his 
exquisite  feeling  for  vowel-sounds,  to  his  firm  control 
over  contrasting  consonants,  to  his  intuitive  sense  of 
rhythm,  and  to  his  perfect  understanding  of  the  value 
of  an  adroitly  varied  refrain,  —  to  the  antithesis  of 
"  Sunset  and  evening  star  "  with  "  Twilight  and  evening 
bell,"  and  to  the  final  recurrence  of  the  figure  of  the  bar 
to  be  crossed  which  is  suggested  in  the  first  quatrain. 
Perhaps  the  refrain  is  not  fairly  to  be  classed  under 
tone-color ;  and  yet  it  may  as  well  be  considered  here 
as  later.  The  refrain  may  be  defined  as  a  phrase,  often 
filling  a  whole  line,  which  recurs  again  and  again  at 
intervals,  sometimes  absolutely  unchanged  and  some- 
times artfully  modified  in  meaning.  This  device,  which 
we  use  now  for  sustaining  and  reawakening  the  interest 
of  the  hearer,  is  of  very  high  antiquity ;  and  it  is  fre- 
quent in  the  folksongs  of  various  peoples.  Macaulay 
employed  it  in  the  stirring  stanzas  in  which  he  sought 
to  recapture  the  swiftness  of  the  primitive  ballad ;  and 
in  the  "  Battle  of  Ivry "  he  ends  off  again  and  again 
with  "  King  Henry  of  Navarre."  Tennyson  chose  to  set 
his  refrain  at  the  beginning  of  every  stanza  of  his 
"  Lady  Clara  Vere  de  Vere."  Kipling  makes  us  feel  its 
stark  power  in  his  gruesome  "  Danny  Deever  "  and  he 
forced  it  to  lend  weight  to  his  lofty  "  Recessional." 
Walt  Whitman  seized  it  for  once  in  his  noble  lament 
for  Lincoln,  where  every  stanza  begins  with 

O  Captain,  my  Captain  ! 

and  every  stanza  ends  with 

Fallen  cold  and  dead. 


TONE-COLOR  95 

The  refrain  is  the  backbone  of  Longfellow's  "  Ex- 
celsior  "  and  of  his  "  Old  Clock  on  the  Stairs  "  ;  and 
he  modified  it  pathetically  in  his  "  Chamber  over  the 
Gate."  It  is  adroitly  handled  in  Riley's  "  There,  little 
girl,  don't  cry."  It  is  the  heart  of  Tennyson's  "  Lady 
of  Shalott " ;  and  it  is  dramatically  varied  in  his 
ballad  of  the  "  Sisters,"  in  which  all  the  six  stanzas 
end  with  the  same  line :  — 

O,  the  earl  was  fair  to  see  ! 

While  in  the  third  line  of  the  successive  stanzas  he 
rings  the  changes  on 

The  wind  is  blowing  in  turret  and  tree, 
which  becomes 

The  wind  is  howling  in  turret  and  tree 
and 

The  wind  is  raving  in  turret  and  tree, 

only  to  return  in  the  final  stanza  to  the  original  form. 
Tennyson  also  employed  it  most  effectually  in  his 
"  May  Queen "  and  again,  a  little  insistently,  in  his 
"  Oriana." 

In  the  essay  on  the  "Philosophy  of  Composition," 
wherein  Poe  pretended  to  set  forth  the  successive 
steps  which  he  took  in  order  to  write  the  "  Raven," 
he  asserted  that  no  artistic  effect  had  been  more  often 
employed  in  verse  than  the  refrain.  "  The  univer- 
sality of  its  employment  sufficed  to  assure  me  of  its 
intrinsic  value,  and  spared  me  the  necessity  of  sub- 
mitting it  to  analysis.  I  considered  it,  however,  with 
regard  to  its  susceptibility  of  improvement,  and  soon 
saw  it  to  be  in  a  primitive  condition.  As  commonly 


96  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

used,  the  refrain  or  burden,  not  only  is  limited  to 
lyric  verse,  but  depends  for  its  impression  upon  the 
force  of  monotone  —  both  in  sound  and  thought.  The 
pleasure  is  deduced  solely  from  the  sense  of  identity  — 
of  repetition.  I  resolved  to  diversify,  and  so  heighten, 
the  effect  by  adhering  in  general  to  the  monotone  of 
sound,  while  I  continually  varied  that  of  thought ; 
that  is  to  say,  I  determined  to  produce  continuously 
novel  effects  by  the  variation  of  the  application  of  the 
refrain  —  the  refrain  itself  remaining  for  the  most 
part  unvaried."  Whether  Poe  knew  it  or  not,  this 
exact  repetition  of  the  refrain  with  a  shifting  meaning 
of  the  repeated  word  or  phrase  was  not  really  a 
novelty  of  his,  since  it  can  be  found  —  to  search  no 
further  —  in  the  ballade  and  the  rondeau  and  the 
triolet. 

Poe  then  went  on  to  consider  the  proper  length  of 
the  refrain  itself;  and  here  his  acuteness  has  full 
play.  "  Since  its  application  was  to  be  repeatedly 
varied,  it  was  clear  that  the  refrain  itself  must  be 
brief,  for  there  would  have  been  an  unsurmountable 
difficulty  in  frequent  variations  of  application  in  any 
sentence  of  length.  In  proportion  to  the  brevity  of 
the  sentence  would  of  course  be  the  facility  of  the 
variation.  This  led  me  at  once  to  a  single  word  as  the 
best  refrain."  And  as  the  refrain  was  properly  to 
close  the  several  stanzas,  "  such  a  close,  to  have  force, 
must  be  sonorous  and  susceptible  to  protracted  em- 
phasis." These  considerations  "  inevitably  led  me  to 
the  long  o  as  the  most  sonorous  vowel  in  connection 
with  r  as  the  most  producible  consonant."  So  he 
selected  for  his  refrain  the  single  word  Nevermore. 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  Poe  is  quite  candid  in 


TONE-COLOR  97 

his  explanation  of  the  processes  of  his  composition  of 
the  "  Raven,"  for  if  the  poem  is  solely  the  result  of 
his  analytic  determination  of  the  proper  constituent 
elements  of  a  pathetic  lyric,  there  would  be  reason  for 
wonder  why  he  did  not  start  up  the  machinery  again 
and  manufacture  a  succession  of  similar  poems.  Yet 
few  poets  have  ever  taken  us  so  satisfactorily  into  the 
workshop  as  Poe  did  in  this  paper,  laying  bare  the 
artistic  motives  which  guided  his  creation.  Poe  de- 
clared these  motives  to  have  been  conscious,  and  such 
they  may  have  been  in  some  measure,  although  probably 
not  to  the  degree  he  claims.  A  true  poet  has  always 
built  better  than  he  knew ;  and  conscious  craftsman  as 
Tennyson  was,  we  may  doubt  whether  the  half  of  the 
verbal  and  metrical  felicities  which  we  can  detect  in 
"  Crossing  the  Bar  "  were  deliberately  intended  and 
foreseen  by  the  poet.  They  were  the  result  of  Tennyson's 
lifelong  attention  to  technic,  until  his  hand  had  become 
subdued  to  what  it  worked  in  and  until  he  wrought  his 
marvels  almost  unconsciously. 

The  refrain  is  closely  akin  in  effect  to  the  repetition 
of  a  thought  in  other  words  —  as  Tennyson  returned 
in  his  last  line  to  the  crossing  of  the  bar,  first  men- 
tioned in  the  fourth  line  of  his  first  stanza.  Sometimes 
this  can  be  attained  by  the  recurrence  of  a  single  strik- 
ing word,  as  in  this  "  Parable " l  by  Anna  Reeve 
Aldrich :  — 

I  made  the  cross  myself  whose  weight 

Was  later  laid  on  me. 
This  thought  is  torture  as  I  toil 

Up  life's  steep  Calvary. 

1  By  permission  from  Songs  about  Love,  Life  and  Death,  by  Anna 
Reeve  Aldrich,  copyight,  1892,  by  Charles  Scribuor's  Sons. 


98  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

To  think  mine  own  bands  drove  the  nails  I 

I  sang  a  merry  song, 
And  chose  the  heaviest  wood  I  had 

To  build  it  firm  and  strong. 

If  I  had  guessed  —  if  I  bad  dreamed 

Its  weight  was  meant  for  me, 
I  should  have  made  a  lighter  cross 

To  bear  up  Calvary. 

And  this  repetition  of  the  vital  word  or  phrase  need 
not  occur  at  the  end  of  the  poem  or  even  of  the  stanza. 
Indeed,  there  is  sometimes  a  special  emphasis  in  plac- 
ing it  earlier,  as  in  Lander's  exquisite  lyric,  which  has 
a  classic  grace  in  its  delicate  force.  In  this  poem  a 
beautiful  proper  name  serves  to  tie  the  two  quatrains 
together :  — 

Ah,  what  avails  the  sceptered  raee, 

Ah,  what  the  form  divine  ! 
What  every  beauty,  every  grace  I 

Rose  Aylmer,  all  were  thine. 

Rose  Aylmer,  whom  those  wakeful  eyes 

May  weep,  but  never  see, 
A  night  of  memories  and  of  sighs 

I  consecrate  to  tbee. 

This  same  transposition  of  the  refrain  from  the  end 
of  the  stanza  is  to  be  seen  in  Gilder's  "  Sherman," 
where  it  opens  each  of  the  first  three  stanzas  to  reap- 
pear paraphrased  but  undisguised  in  the  third  line  of 
the  final  stanza :  — 

Glory  and  honor  and  fame  and  everlasting  laudation 

For  our  captains  who  loved  not  war,  but  fought  for  the  life  of 

the  nation; 

Who  knew  that,  in  all  the  land,  one  slave  meant  strife,  not  peace; 
Who  fought  for  freedom,  not  glory;  made  war  that  war  might 

cease. 


TONE-COLOR  99 

Glory  and  honor  and  fame ;  the  beating  of  muffled  drums ; 
The  wailing  funeral  dirge,  as  the  flag- wrapped  coffin  comes ; 
Fame  and  honor  and  glory  ;  and  joy  for  a  noble  soul, 
For  a  full  and  splendid  life,  and  laureled  rest  at  the  goal. 

Glory  and  honor  and  fame ;  the  pomp  that  a  soldier  prizes ; 
The  league-long  waving  line  as  the  marching  falls  and  rises; 
Rumbling  of  caissons  and  guns;  the  clatter  of  horses' feet, 
And  a  million  awe-struck  faces  far  down  the  waiting  street. 

But  better  than  martial  woe,  and  the  pageant  of  civic  sorrow; 
Better  than  praise  of  to-day,  or  the  statue  we  build  to-morrow; 
Better  than  honor  and  glory,  and  History's  iron  pen, 
Was  the  thought  of  duty  done  and  the  love  of  his  fellow-men. 

Perhaps  it  is  not  needful  to  draw  attention  to  what 
all  must  have  felt  —  the  imitative  ingenuity  of  the 

Rumbling  of  caissons  and  guns 
and  the  imagination  and  picturesqueness  of 
The  league-long  waving  line  as  the  marching  falls  and  rises. 

Poe  also  made  use  of  another  device  which  has  a 
certain  likeness  to  the  refrain.  He  repeated  the 
final  line  of  his  stanza  with  a  modification  of  one  or 
more  words,  thus  gaming  the  emphasis  of  reiteration 
while  avoiding  the  monotony  of  exact  repetition.  In 
"  For  Annie,"  for  example,  not  a  little  of  the  vibrating 
intensity  of  the  lyric  is  due  to  these  terminal  echoes :  — 

The  moaning  and  groaning, 

The  sighing  and  sobbing, 
Are  quieted  now 

With  that  horrible  throbbing 
At  heart:  —  ah,  that  horrible, 

Horrible  throbbing  1 

When  the  light  was  extinguished 
She  covered  me  warm, 


100  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

And  she  prayed  to  the  angels 

To  keep  me  from  harm, 
To  the  queen  of  the  angels 

To  shield  me  from  harm. 

The  same  method  is  to  be  observed  also  in  "  Anna- 
bel Lee  " :  — 

For  the  moon  never  beams,  without  bringing  me  dreams 

Of  the  beautiful  Annabel  Lee; 
And  the  stars  never  rise,  but  I  feel  the  bright  eyes 

Of  the  beautiful  Annabel  Lee; 
And  so,  all  the  night-tide,  I  lie  down  by  the  side 
Of  my  darling,  my  darling  —  my  life  and  my  bride, 

In  her  sepulchre  there  by  the  sea, 

In  her  tomb  by  the  sounding  sea. 

And   in  "  Ulalume,"    the   principle   seems   to   have 
been  carried  to  an  even  further  extreme :  — 

Our  talk  had  been  serious  and  sober, 

But  our  thoughts  they  were  palsied  and  sere, 
Our  memories  were  treacherous  and  sere, 

For  we  knew  not  the  month  was  October, 

And  we  marked  not  the  night  of  the  year, 
(Ah,  night  of  all  nights  in  the  year  ! ) 

We  noted  not  the  dim  lake  of  Auber 

(Though  once  we  had  journeyed  down  here), 

Remembered  not  the  dank  tarn  of  Auber 

Nor  the  ghoul-haunted  woodland  of  Weir. 

This  stanza  has  a  magic  melody,  even  if  its  mean- 
ing is  vague  and  uncertain ;  it  steals  over  us  like  a 
strain  of  music.  And  its  insinuating  charm  is  due  to 
dexterity  of  rhythmic  variation,  to  adroitness  in  inven- 
tion of  rime,  and,  above  all,  to  tone-color,  to  the  choice 
and  to  the  contrast  of  the  mere  sounds. 

Perhaps  this  chapter  cannot  end  better  than  with 
a  pregnant  quotation  from  Stevenson's  most  illumi- 


TONE-COLOR  101 

native  essay  on  "  Style  in  Literature  "  :  "  Each  phrase 
in  literature  is  built  of  sounds,  as  each  phrase  in  music 
consists  of  notes.  One  sound  suggests,  echoes,  de- 
mands, and  harmonizes  with  another ;  and  the  art  of 
rightly  using  these  concordances  is  the  final  art  in  lit- 
erature. It  used  to  be  a  piece  of  good  advice  to  all 
young  writers  to  avoid  alliteration  ;  and  the  advice  was 
sound,  in  so  far  as  it  prevented  daubing.  None  the 
less  for  that,  was  it  abominable  nonsense,  and  the 
merest  raving  of  the  blindest  of  the  blind  who  will  not 
see.  The  beauty  of  the  contents  of  a  phrase,  or  of  a 
sentence,  depends  implicitly  upon  alliteration  and 
upon  assonance.  The  vowel  demands  to  be  repeated. 
The  consonant  demands  to  be  repeated ;  and  both  cry 
aloud  to  be  perpetually  varied.  You  may  follow  the 
adventures  of  a  letter  through  any  passage  that  has 
particularly  pleased  you ;  find  it  perhaps  denied  a 
while,  to  tantalize  the  ear ;  find  it  fired  at  you  again 
in  a  whole  broadside ;  or  find  it  pass  into  congenerous 
sounds,  one  liquid  or  labial  melting  away  into  an- 
other." 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    STANZA 

Verse  —  to  the  true  poet  —  is  no  clog.  It  is  idly  called  a  trammel  and 
a  difficulty.  It  is  a  help.  It  springs  from  the  same  enthusiasm  as  the 
rest  of  his  impulses,  and  is  necessary  to  their  satisfaction  and  effect. 
Verse  is  no  more  a  clog  than  the  condition  of  rushing  upward  is  a 
clog  to  fire,  or  than  the  roundness  and  order  of  the  globe  is  a  clog  to 
the  freedom  and  variety  that  abound  within  its  sphere.  Verse  is  no 
dominator  orer  the  poet,  except  inasmuch  as  the  bond  is  recipro- 
cal, and  the  poet  dominates  over  the  verse.  —  LBIOH  HUNT  :  What  it 
Poetry  ? 

EPIC,  idyllic  and  narrative  poems,  as  well  as  didactic,  de- 
scriptive and  satiric  verse,  are  usually  written  continu- 
ously without  subdivision  into  minor  parts  of  a  rigid 
length.  They  may  be  set  off  into  books  or  cantos  ;  but 
they  are  not  cut  up  into  stanzas.  That  is  to  say,  they 
may  have  a  series  of  chapters,  but  they  are  not  measured 
off  into  equal  paragraphs.  Lyric  poetry,  including  the 
ballad  and  often  also  the  story  in  verse,  is  generally 
composed  of  a  succession  of  stanzas  identical  in  structure 
and  uniform  in  length.  Thus  the  stanza  is  the  unit,  of 
which  the  sequence  constitutes  the  poem.  It  is  a  part 
of  the  whole ;  and  yet  it  is  complete  in  itself.  It  re- 
sembles the  paragraph  of  prose-composition,  except 
that  it  has  uniformity  of  length  and  of  structure. 

In  the  majority  of  the  poems  written  in  the  modern 
languages,  rime  is  employed  to  make  the  framework 
of  the  stanza  clearly  perceptible  to  the  ear.  Rime 
not  only  marks  off  the  ends  of  the  several  lines,  it 
serves  also  to  organize  and  to  coordinate  the  stanza 


THE  STANZA  103 

itself.  It  sustains  the  architecture  of  the  often  elab- 
orate form.  This  is  an  added  reason  why  rime  should 
be  exact  and  perfect,  so  that  the  ear  may  the  more 
readily  perceive  the  scheme  of  the  stanza,  however 
complex  this  may  be.  And  as  this  apprehension  and 
retention  of  the  skeleton  of  the  structure  imposes  more 
or  less  burden  upon  the  ear,  there  is  a  certain  disad- 
vantage in  a  stanza  which  is  too  protracted  in  length, 
or  too  complicated  in  arrangement.  This  must  ever  be 
borne  in  mind,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  some  stanzaic 
constructions  which  are  neither  short  nor  simple, 
have  a  sweeping  amplitude  gratefully  welcomed  by 
the  ear. 

The  stanza  may  be  any  length,  from  two  lines  to  a 
dozen  or  more.  A  succession  of  couplets,  each  com- 
plete in  itself,  might  seem  to  be  unduly  monotonous 
to  carry  a  story  satisfactorily.  Yet  the  couplet  is  the 
simple  form  chosen  by  Whittier  to  tell  about  "  Maud 
Muller"  and  "Barbara  Frietchie."  In  the  first,  the 
sense  is  generally  coincident  with  the  couplet :  — 

Maud  Muller  on  a  summer's  day 
Raked  the  meadow  sweet  with  hay. 

Beneath  her  torn  hat  glowed  the  wealth 
Of  simple  beauty  and  rustic  health. 

In  the  second,  the  poet  sometimes  lets  the  thought  run 
on  from  couplet  to  couplet :  — 

Up  from  the  meadows  rich  with  corn, 
Clear  in  the  cool  September  morn, 

The  clustered  spires  of  Frederick  stand 
Green-walled  by  the  hills  of  Maryland. 


104  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

The  couplet  is  also  the  form  preferred  by  Austin 
Dobson  for  his  "  Ballad  of  Beau  Brocade  " :  — 

Seventeen  hundred  and  thirty-nine  — 
That  was  the  date  of  this  tale  of  mine. 

First  great  George  was  buried  and  gone  ; 
George  the  Second  was  plodding  on. 

The  British  bard,  it  must  be  noted,  allowed  himself 
the  liberty  of  an  occasional  triplet  to  interrupt  the 
current  of  his  couplets :  — 

Out  spoke  Dolly  the  chambermaid, 
(Tremulous  now  and  sore  afraid,) 
11  Stand  and  deliver,  O  Beau  Brocade  ! " 

Firing  then,  out  of  sheer  alarm, 
Hit  the  Beau  in  the  bridle  arm. 

Button  the  first  went  none  knows  where, 
But  it  carried  away  his  solitaire  ; 

Button  the  second  a  circuit  made, 
Glanced  in  under  the  shoulder-blade  ;  — 
Down  from  the  saddle  fell  Beau  Brocade. 

The  triplet  has  also  served  as  a  stanza,  generally 
tied  together  by  a  single  rime,  as  in  Longfellow'g 
"  Maidenhood" :  — 

Maiden  !  with  the  meek,  brown  eyes, 
In  whose  orbs  a  shadow  lies 
Like  the  dusk  in  evening  skies  ! 

Thou  whose  locks  outshine  the  sun, 
Golden  tresses,  wreathed  in  one, 
As  the  braided  streamlets  run  ! 

Standing,  with  reluctant  feet, 
Where  the  brook  and  river  meet, 
Womanhood  and  childhood  fleet  I 


THE  STANZA  105 

Longfellow's  triplets  are  trochaic  tetrameters  with 
the  final  short  syllable  dropped.  In  "  A  Toccata  of 
Galuppi's,"  Browning  employs  triplets  of  trochaic  oc- 
tameter,  also  cutting  off  the  final  short  syllable  :  — 

As  for  Venice  and  her  people,  merely  born  to  bloom  and  drop, 
Here  on  earth  they  bore  their  fruitage,  mirth  and  folly  were  the 

crop  : 
What  of  soul  was  left,  I  wonder,  when  the  kissing  had  to  stop  ? 

Sometimes  the  poet  has  chosen  to  avoid  the  triple 
repetition  of  the  same  sound  in  leaving  the  middle 
line  of  the  three  unrimed ;  and  sometimes  he  has 
carried  over  into  the  second  triplet  the  terminal 
sound  of  this  second  line.  This  is  what  Browning  has 
done  in  the  "  Statue  and  the  Bust " :  — 

There 's  a  palace  in  Florence,  the  world  knows  well, 

And  a  statue  watches  it  from  the  square, 
And  this  story  of  both  do  our  townsmen  tell. 

Ages  ago,  a  lady  there, 

At  the  farthest  window  facing  the  East 
Asked,  "  Who  rides  by  with  the  royal  air  ?  " 

The  bridesmaids'  prattle  around  her  ceased; 

She  leaned  forth,  one  on  either  hand  ; 
They  saw  how  the  blush  of  the  bride  increased  — 

This  same  method  of  linking  the  triplets  together 
into  a  chain  is  to  be  found  also  in  Morris's  "  Defence 
of  Guinevere  "  :  — 

But,  knowing  now  that  they  would  have  her  speak, 
She  threw  her  wet  hair  backward  from  her  brow, 
Her  hand  close  to  her  mouth,  touching  her  cheek, 

As  though  she  had  there  a  shameful  blow, 

And  feeling  it  shameful  to  feel  ought  but  shame 
All  through  her  heart,  yet  felt  her  cheek  burn  so, 


106  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

She  must  a  little  touch  it:  like  one  lame, 

She  walked  away  from  Gauwaine,  with  her  head 
Still  lifted  up  ;  and  ou  her  cheek  of  flame. 

A  massive  and  sweeping  triplet-stanza  is  that  em- 
ployed by  Kipling  in  the  dedication  of  his  book^of 
verses  to  his  dead  brother-in-law,  Wolcott  Balestier. 
It  owes  much  of  its  weight  and  largeness  to  the  length 
of  the  several  lines,  which  are  iambic  heptameter:  — 

Beyond  the  path  of  the  outmost  sun  through  utter  darkness 

hurled  — 

Further  than  ever  comet  flared  or  vagrant  star-dust  swirled  — 
Live  such  as  fought  and  sailed  and  ruled  and  loved  and  made 

oar  world. 

They  are  purged  of  pride  because  they  died,  they  know  the 

worth  of  their  bays, 
They  sit  at  wine  with  the  Maidens  Nine  and  the  Gods  of  the 

Elder  Days, 
It  is  their  will  to  serve  or  be  still  as  fitteth  our  Father's  praise. 

This  large  triplet-stanza  is  appropriate  to  the  full- 
blown eulogy  which  is  here  Kipling's  intent.  But  it 
is  not  fitter  for  its  special  purpose  than  the  more  re- 
served triplet-stanza  that  Tennyson  chose  for  his 
"Two  Voices":  — 

And  all  so  variously  wrought, 

I  marvell'd  how  the  mind  was  brought 

To  anchor  by  one  gloomy  thought. 

Of  all  possible  stanzas  the  quatrain  is  the  most  fre- 
quent in  English  verse.  Generally  the  first  and  third 
lines  rime  together,  and  the  second  and  fourth,  —  as 
in  Emerson's  "Concord  Hymn":  — 

By  the  rude  bridge  that  arched  the  flood, 

Their  flag  to  April's  breeze  unfurled, 
Here  once  the  embattled  farmers  stood, 
And  fired  the  shot  heard  round  the  world. 


': 


THE  STANZA  ,  107 

This  form  of  the  quatrain  may  be  varied  by  the  alter- 
nation of  double  and  single  rimes,  as  in  Byron's  :  — 

When  a  man  hath  no  freedom  to  fight  for  at  home, 
Let  him  combat  for  that  of  his  neighbors; 

Let  him  think  of  the  glories  of  Greece  and  of  Rome, 
And  get  knocked  on  the  head  for  his  labors. 

And  in  this  of  Shelley's  :  — 

I  fear  thy  kisses,  gentle  maiden, 

Thou  needest  not  fear  mine; 
My  spirit  is  too  deeply  ladeu 

Ever  to  burden  thine. 

Some  poets  have  found  an  advantage  in  leaving  the 
first  and  third  lines  unrimed,  as  in  this  quatrain  of 
Coleridge's  :  — 

All  thoughts,  all  passions,  all  delights, 
Whatever  stirs  this  mortal  frame; 

All  are  but  ministers  of  love, 
And  feed  his  sacred  flame. 

But  although  this  is  here  printed  as  four  lines,  it 
may  be  questioned  whether  the  ear  does  not  really  re- 
ceive it  rather  as  two  long  lines,  in  consequence  of 
the  absence  of  the  rime.  In  this  case  there  is  a  cer- 
tain strain  imposed  on  the  hearing.  This  is  probably 
the  reason  why  careful  versifiers  rarely  leave  any  pair 
of  lines  unrimed  in  a  poem  which  is  otherwise 
rimed.  A  single  unrinied  line  in  a  quatrain,  the 
other  three  lines  of  which  rime  together,  is  often 
restful  ;  and  this  is  the  form  of  the  quatrain  chosen 
by  Fitzgerald  for  his  translation  of  Omar  Khayyam  :  — 

A  book  of  verses  underneath  the  bough, 
A  jug  of  wine,  a  loaf  of  bread,  and  tbou 
Beside  me  singing  in  the  wilderness  — 
Oh,  wilderness  were  Paradise  enow  1 


108  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Another  disposition  of  the  unrimed  line  is  to  be 
found  in  Byron's  familiar  epistle  to  his  publisher, 
which  consists  of  a  riming  triplet,  with  an  unrimed 
refrain :  — 

To  thee,  with  hope  and  terror  dumb, 
The  unfledged  MS.  authors  come  ; 
Thou  printest  all  —  and  sellest  some  — 
My  Murray. 

Along  thy  sprucest  bookshelves  shine 
The  works  thou  deemest  most  divine  — 
The  "  art  of  cookery,"  and  mine, 

My  Murray. 

This  same  arrangement  of  the  quatrain,  which  Byron 
employed  jocularly,  serves  also  for  the  massive  and 
resonant  "Battle- Hymn  of  the  Republic  "  :  — 

Mine  eyes  have  seen  the  glory  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord  : 
He  is  trampling  out  the  vintage  where  the  grapes  of  wrath  are 

stored ; 

He  hath  loosed  the  fateful  lightning  of  his  terrible  swift  sword  : 
His  truth  is  marching  on. 

In  this  lofty  lyric,  the  refrain  always  ends  with 
**  marching  on,"  but  the  rest  of  the  line  is  sometimes 

varied :  — 

His  day  is  marching  on, 

and 

Since  God  is  marching  on. 

This  is  a  form  of  the  quatrain  closely  akin  to  a 
triplet ;  and  there  is  also  a  form  of  the  quatrain  which 
is  composed  of  two  consecutive  couplets.  Here  is  an 
example,  from  Byron's  "  Stanzas  written  on  the  Road 
from  Florence  to  Pisa"  :  — 

Oh,  talk  not  to  me  of  a  name  great  in  story; 
The  days  of  our  youth  are  the  days  of  our  glory; 
And  the  myrtle  and  ivy  of  sweet  two-and-twenty 
Are  worth  all  your  laurels,  though  ever  so  plenty. 


THE  STANZA  109 

In  this  quatrain,  the  two  couplets  come  one  after 
the  other.  In  the  quatrain  which  Tennyson  chose  for 
"  In  Memoriam"  a  couplet  is  inserted  between  the  lines 
of  another  couplet :  — 

Who  loves  not  Knowledge  ?  Who  shall  rail 
Against  her  beauty  ?  May  she  mix 
With  men  and  prosper  !  Who  shall  fix 

Her  pillars  ?  Let  her  work  prevail. 

But  on  her  forehead  sits  a  fire; 
She  sets  her  forward  countenance 
And  leaps  into  the  future  chance, 

Submitting  all  things  to  desire. 

As  it  is  customary  to  represent  iambs  and  trochees 
by  symbols,  v  -  and  —  w,  so  it  is  traditional  to  indicate 
the  riming  scheme  of  any  stanza  by  alphabetical  sym- 
bols, d-a  representing  one  pair  of  rimes,  b—b  another 
and  x-~w  standing  for  lines  without  rime.  Translating 
into  these  alphabetic  symbols  the  several  forms  of  the 
quatrain,  we  see  that  the  alternating  rimes,  all  single 
or  single  and  double,  as  in  the  examples  from  Emer- 
son and  Shelley,  are  arranged  thus,  a,  6,  a,  6.  In  Cole- 
ridge's quatrain  we  have  ou,  a,  cc,  a ;  in  Fitzgerald's 
o,  a,  «,  a  and  in  Byron's  flippant  address  to  Murray, 
a,  a,  a,  x.  In  Byron's  quatrain  composed  of  a  pair  of 
couplets,  we  have  a,  a,  6,  b ;  and  in  Tennyson's  "  In 
Memoriam  "  we  have  a,  6,  6,  a.  These  are  not  all  the 
ways  in  which  rimed  and  unrimed  lines  can  be  ar- 
ranged in  a  quatrain,  but  they  are  the  most  frequently 
used.  And  these  forms  of  the  quatrain  may  be  made 
infinitely  various  by  lengthening  or  shortening  one  or 
more  lines  of  the  four.  The  rime-scheme  of  Bryant's 
"  To  a  Waterfowl "  is  a,  6,  a,  6,  the  same  as  that  of 
Emerson's  "  Concord  Hymn  " ;  and  yet  the  effect  upon 


110  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

the  ear  is  totally  different  in  consequence  of  the  met* 
rical  variation  :  — 

Whither,  midst  falling  dew, 

While  glow  the  heavens  with  the  last  steps  of  day, 
Far,  through  their  rosy  depths,  dost  thou  pursue 

Thy  solitary  way  ? 

The  same  also  is  the  rime-scheme  of  Hood's  "  Haunted 
House,"  wherein  the  difference  is  accentuated  by  the 
double  rime :  — 

The  wood-louse  dropped  and  rolled  into  a  ball, 
Touched  by  some  impulse,  occult  or  mechanic. 

And  nameless  beetles  ran  along  the  wall 
In  universal  panio. 

Just  as  the  quatrain  may  be  composed  by  the  union 
of  two  couplets,  one  following  the  other,  so  two  qua- 
trains of  any  of  these  forms  may  be  combined  into  an 
eight-line  stanza.  The  stanza  of  the  ordinary  ballad  is 
simply  a  double  quatrain,  riming  a,  6,  a,  6,  c,  d1  c,  J, 
or  else  with  the  first,  third,  fifth  and  seventh  lines 
left  unrimed,  a;,  a,  a?,  a,  x,  6,  «,  6,  as  in  Kipling's 
"  Merchantmen  "  :  — 

King  Solomon  drew  merchantmen* 

Because  of  his  desire 
For  peacocks,  apes,  and  ivory, 

From  Tarshish  unto  Tyre  : 
With  cedars  out  of  Lebanon 

Which  Hiram  rafted  down, 
But  we  be  only  sailormen 

That  use  in  London  Town. 

The  noble  stanza  in  which  Drayton  composed  his 
superb  and  sonorous  "  Battle  of  Agincourt "  is  simply 
two  triplets  with  the  fourth  and  eighth  lines  riming  tot 
gether,  a,  a,  a,  6,  c,  c,  c,  b :  — 


THE  STANZA  111 

Fair  stood  the  wind  for  France, 
When  we  our  sails  advance, 
Nor  now  to  prove  our  chance 

Longer  will  tarry  ; 
But  putting  to  the  main, 
At  Caux  the  mouth  of  Seine, 
With  all  his  martial  train 

Landed  King  Harry. 

Herrick,  who  is  a  master  of  metrical  effect,  in  his 
lively  "  To  Violets  "  uses  a  shorter  line  than  Tennyson 
chose  for  his  stately  "  In  Memoriam,"  but  employs  the 
same  arrangement  of  rimes,  a,  6,  6,  a,  c,  <?,<?,  c :  — 

Welcome,  maids  of  honor  ! 

You  do  bring 

In  the  Spring, 
And  wait  upon  her. 
She  has  virgins  many 

Fresh  and  fair; 

Yet  you  are 
More  sweet  than  any. 

Another  effective  eight-line  stanza  is  that  which 
Byron  handles  wittily  in  "Don  Juan."  The  rime-scheme 
is  a,  6,  a,  6,  a,  6,  c,  c,  the  final  couplet  coming  like  the 
crack  of  a  whip :  — 

If  ever  I  should  condescend  to  prose 

I  '11  write  poetical  commandments,  which 

Shall  supersede  beyond  all  doubt  all  those 
That  went  before;  in  these  I  shall  enrich 

My  text  with  many  things  that  no  one  knows, 
And  carry  precept  to  the  highest  pitch: 

I  '11  call  the  work  "  Longinus,  o'er  a  Bottle, 

Or,  Every  Poet  his  own  Aristotle." 

Yet  another  arrangement  of  rimes,  pleasing  to  the 
ear  and  binding  the  stanza  into  compact  unity,  is  that 
\n  which  a  quatrain  is  followed  by  a  triplet,  the  added 


112  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

eighth  line  riming  with  the  second  and  fourth,  a,  &,  a, 
6,  c,  c,  c,  6,  as  in  Swinburne's  "  Garden  of  Proser« 
pine  " :  — 

We  are  not  sure  of  sorrow, 

And  joy  was  never  sure; 
To-day  will  die  to-morrow, 

Time  stoops  to  no  man's  lure; 
And  love,  grown  faint  and  fretful, 
With  lips  but  half-regretful, 
Sighs,  and  with  eyes  forgetful 

Weeps  that  no  loves  endure. 

Also  excellent  in  its  tying  of  the  two  quatrains  to- 
gether is  the  form  found,  for  example,  in  Chaucer's 
"  Monk's  Tale,"  a,  6,  a,  6,  6,  c,  6,  c,  the  second  rime 
of  the  first  quatrain  continuing  as  the  first  rime  of  the 
second  quatrain,  thus  setting  a  couplet  in  the  middle 
of  the  stanza :  — 

Cenobia,  of  Palymerie  queene  — 

As  writeii  Persies  of  hir  noblesse,  — 
So  worthy  was  in  armes,  and  so  kene, 

That  no  wight  passed  hir  in  hardynesse, 

Ne  in  lynage,  ne  in  other  gentilesse. 
Of  Kinges  blood  of  Peres  is  she  descended; 

I  seye  not  that  she  had  moost  fairnesse, 
But  of  hire  shape  she  myghte  not  been  amended. 

Not  only  can  almost  numberless  combinations  of 
rimes  be  essayed  in  the  eight-line  stanza,  but  any  com- 
bination which  may  be  adopted  can  be  modified  to 
suit  the  theme,  and  can  be  made  to  take  on  an  aspect 
of  novelty  by  shortening  certain  lines  and  lengthening 
others,  and  by  the  interlinking  of  double  rimes  with 
single  or  by  leaving  certain  lines  unrimed.  The  choice 
of  types  at  the  command  of  the  poet  is  practically  in- 
exhaustible ;  and  he  reveals  his  intuitive  feeling  for 


THE  STANZA  113 

verse  by  the  certainty  with  which  he  selects  the  type 
that  is  best  suited  to  his  subject,  and  by  the  skill  with 
which  he  so  modifies  this  as  to  serve  his  immediate 
purpose. 

After  the  quatrain,  the  stanza  of  eight  lines  has 
been  the  most  popular  with  the  poets  of  our  language. 
Yet  they  have  chosen  to  write  also  in  stanzas  of  many 
another  length ;  and  it  is  only  proper  to  give  a  few 
specimens  of  the  more  significant  of  these  other  stan- 
zas. The  stanza  of  five  lines,  for  example,  has  ad- 
vantages of  its  own.  Sometimes  it  resembles  one  of 
the  quatrain-forms  already  considered  with  the  addi- 
tion of  an  extra  line ;  and  sometimes  it  takes  on  a 
special  quality  of  its  own.  The  younger  Hood  con- 
sidered it  "one  of  the  most  musical  forms  of  the 
stanza,"  since  "  it  is  capable  of  almost  endless  variety, 
and  the  proportions  of  rimes,  three  and  two,  seem  to 
be  especially  conducive  to  harmony."  The  rime-scheme 
may  be  a,  a,  6,  6,  cc,  the  x  representing  a  refrain,  as 
in  Longfellow's  "  Excelsior  "  :  — 

The  shades  of  night  were  falling  fast, 
As  through  an  Alpine  village  passed 
A  youth,  who  bore,  'mid  snow  and  ice, 
A  banner  with  the  strange  device, 
Excelsior ! 

Or  it  may  be  a,  5,  a,  6,  6,  as  in  Waller's  "  To  a 
Rose  " :  — 

Go,  lovely  rose ! 
Tell  her  that  wastes  her  time  and  me, 

That  now  she  knows, 
When  I  resemble  her  to  thee, 
How  sweet  and  fair  she  seems  to  be. 

Here  the  final  couplet  seems  to  sum  up  and  rein- 
force the  stanza,  giving  it  a  sharper  point.  The  same 


114  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

rime-scheme  with  the  use  of  double  rimes  is  found  in 
Shelley's  "  Skylark  "  :  - 

Higher  still  and  higher 

From  the  earth  thou  springest 

Like  a  cloud  of  fire  ; 

The  blue  deep  thou  wingest, 
And  singing  still  dost  soar,  and  soaring  ever  singest. 

Here  the  lengthening  of  the  fifth  line  strengthens 
the  stanza.  Perhaps  it  was  Shelley's  use  of  this  effect 
in  lyric  which  suggested  to  Swinburne  the  type  he 
employed  more  than  once,  in  which  the  fifth  line  is  as 
long  as  all  the  four  lines  which  precede  it :  — 

First  life  on  my  sources 

First  drifted  and  swam ; 
Out  of  me  are  the  forces 
That  save  it  or  damn; 

Out  of  the  man  and  woman  and  wild-beast  and  bird;  before  God 
was,  I  am. 

If  we  analyze  this  metrically,  we  perceive  it  to  be 
really  an  anapestic  heptameter  couplet,  of  which  the 
first  line  is  divided  into  four  parts  by  the  use  of 
double  and  single  rhymes,  gaining  weight  and  mass 
by  the  full  flow  of  the  final  line,  unencumbered  by  in- 
ternal rime.  But  this  is  a  form  to  be  handled  satis- 
factorily only  by  a  master;  and  it  lends  itself  easily 
to  parody,  because  of  the  obvious  peculiarity  of  its 
structure.  It  was  borrowed  by  Bret  Harte  for  his 
"Plain  Language  from  Truthful  James":  — 

Which  I  wish  to  remark, 

And  my  language  is  plain, 
That  for  ways  that  are  dark 

And  for  tricks  that  are  vain, 
The  heathen  Chinee  is  peculiar, 

Which  the  same  I  would  rise  to  explain. 


THE  STANZA  115 

In  one  of  the  lyrics  of  "  The  Foresters,"  Tennyson 
has  a  five-line  stanza,  x,  a,  6,  a,  6,  in  which  he  obtains 
an  effect  of  ease  and  freedom  by  leaving  the  first  line 
without  rime :  — 

Love  flew  in  at  the  window 

As  Wealth  walked  in  at  the  door. 
"You  have  come  as  you  saw  Wealth  coming,"  said  I. 
But  he  fluttered  his  wings  with  a  sweet  little  cry, 

"I'll  cleave  to  you  rich  or  poor." 

And  in  "  A  Serenade  at  the  Villa,"  Browning  is 
content  with  five  lines  of  equal  length,  rimed  alter- 
nately, a,  6,  a,  6,  a,  perhaps  the  simplest  possible 
arrangement  of  this  stanza:  — 

That  was  I,  you  heard  last  night, 
Where  there  rose  no  moon  at  all, 

Nor,  to  pierce  the  strained  and  tight 
Tent  of  heaven,  a  planet  small: 

Life  was  dead,  and  so  was  light. 

It  may  be  thought  that  Mrs.  Browning  was  a  little 
too  negligent  of  the  possibilities  of  the  five-line  form, 
when  she  was  content  to  use  only  one  rime,  leaving 
two  lines  unrimed,  —  x,  a,  »,  a,  a;  but  there  is  in- 
disputable strength  in  the  lengthening  of  the  final 
line,  although  this  is  not  paraded  as  in  Swinburne's 
stanza  already  quoted :  — 

Oh,  a  lady  might  have  come  there, 

Hooded  fairly  like  her  hawk 
With  a  book  or  lute  in  summer, 

And  a  hope  of  sweeter  talk. 
Listening  less  to  her  own  music  than  for  footsteps  on  the  walk. 

When  we  analyze  this,  we  discover  that  it  is  really  a 
triplet  of  trochaic  octameter,  although  presented  to  the 


116  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

eye  as  five  lines,  —  much  as  Swinburne's  stanza  re« 
vealed  itself  as  a  couplet.  In  fact,  both  Swinburne's 
and  Mrs.  Browning's  are  not  really  in  the  five-line 
form,  since  they  assume  this  outer  shape  only  to  the 
eye.  To  the  ear  Swinburne's  is  only  a  couplet  of  long 
lines,  and  Mrs.  Browning's  is  only  a  triplet.  In  Mrs. 
Browning's  case  the  absence  of  more  than  the  abso- 
lutely necessary  three  rimes  makes  this  fairly  obvious, 
even  to  a  careless  ear ;  whereas  the  two  pairs  of  rimes 
inside  Swinburne's  first  line  may  be  held  to  give  his 
stanza  more  claim  to  be  considered  as  actually  made  up 
of  five  lines,  in  spite  of  the  metrical  equivalence  of  the 
first  four  to  the  final  one. 

Longfellow  employed  an  effective  five-line  stanza  in 
his  "  Enceladus,"  a,  6,  6,  a,  6 :  — 

Under  Mount  Etna  he  lies, 

It  is  slumber,  it  is  not  death  ; 
For  he  struggles  at  times  to  arise, 
And  above  him  the  lurid  skies 

Are  hot  with  his  fiery  breath. 

Just  as  two  quatrains  can  be  combined  into  an  eight- 
line  stanza,  so  two  five-line  stanzas  can  be  united  to 
make  a  ten-line  type.  Sometimes,  indeed,  the  five-line 
stanzas  may  even  be  printed  separately,  although  the 
rime  goes  over  from  the  first  to  the  second  and  from 
the  third  to  the  fourth,  as  in  Longfellow's  "  The  Gob- 
let of  Life,"  in  which  the  rime-scheme  is  o,  a,  a,  a,  6, 
—  c,  c,  c,  c,  b :  — 

Filled  is  Life's  goblet  to  the  brim  ; 
And  though  my  eyes  with  tears  are  dim, 
I  see  its  sparkling  bubbles  swim, 
And  chant  a  melancholy  hymn 
With  solemn  voice  and  slow. 


THE  STANZA  117 

No  purple  flowers,  —  no  garlands  green, 
Conceal  the  goblet's  shade  or  sheen, 
Nor  maddening  drafts  of  Hippocrene, 
Like  gleams  of  sunshine,  flash  between 
Thick  leaves  of  mistletoe. 

This  is  one  of  Longfellow's  earlier  lyrics  and  lie  did 
not  employ  this  type  again,  probably  feeling  that  the 
fourfold  repetition  of  the  rime  in  prompt  succession 
was  a  little  monotonous,  and  that  the  long  wait  for  the 
rime  of  the  fifth  line  to  recur  in  the  tenth  was  per- 
haps a  little  fatiguing  to  the  ear. 

The  two  five-line  stanzas  may  be  merely  conjoined, 
as  in  Moore's  "  The  Time  I  've  lost  in  wooing,"  wherein 
the  rime-scheme  is  o,  a,  6,  6,  a,  c,  c,  <?,  c?,  c:  — 

The  time  I  've  lost  in  wooing, 
In  watching  and  pursuing 

The  light  that  lies 

In  woman's  eyes, 
Has  been  my  heart's  undoing. 
Though  wisdom  oft  has  sought  me, 
I  scorned  the  love  she  brought  me. 

My  only  books 

Were  woman's  looks, 
And  folly  's  all  they  taught  me. 

A  better  arrangement  of  the  ten-line  stanza  is  that 
we  find  in  Gray's  "  On  a  Distant  Prospect  of  Eton  Col- 
lege," wherein  he  ties  together  by  a  middle  couplet  two 
quatrains,  the  first  with  interlinked  rimes  and  the  last 
with  rimes  arranged,  as  in  Tennyson's  "  In  Memoriam/' 
o,  6,  a,  6,  c,  c,  d,  e,  e,  d :  — 

Ye  distant  spires,  ye  antique  towers, 

That  crown  the  watery  glade, 
Where  grateful  Science  still  adores 

Her  Henry's  holy  shade  ; 


118  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

And  ye,  that  from  the  stately  brow 

Of  Windsor's  heights  the  expanse  below 

Of  grove,  of  lawn,  of  mead  survey, 
Whose  turf,  whose  shade,  whose  flowers  among 
Wanders  the  hoary  Thames  along 

His  silver-winding  way. 

There  is  an  effective  ingenuity  in  the  ten-line  stanza 
which  Bret  Harte  employed  in  "  Miss  Blanche  Says." 
The  rime-scheme  is  «,  6,  a,  6,  c,  d,  c,  c,  c,  d;  and  the 
quadruple  repetition  of  one  riming  sound  is  relieved 
by  the  use  of  double  rimes  in  four  of  the  other  lines :  — 

And  you  are  the  poet,  and  so  you  want 

Something  —  what  is  it  ?  —  a  theme,  a  fancy  ? 
Something  or  other  the  Muse  won't  grant 

To  your  old  poetical  necromancy  ; 
Why,  one  half  you  poets  —  you  can't  deny  — 

Don't  know  the  Muse  when  you  chance  to  meet  her, 
But  sit  in  your  attics  and  mope  and  sigh 
For  a  faineant  goddess  to  drop  from  the  sky, 
When  flesh  and  blood  may  be  standing  by 

Quite  at  your  service,  should  you  but  greet  her. 

It  is  needless  to  attempt  to  catalog  all  the  possible 
forms  of  the  ten-line  stanza,  since  it  is  capable  of  un- 
ending variations  in  the  rime-scheme.  But  no  one  of 
its  several  types  is  quite  as  large  and  sweeping  as  the 
nine-line  stanza  which  Spenser  employed  in  the  "  Faery 
Queen  "  and  which  is  usually  called  the  Spenserian  :  — 

So  pure  and  innocent  as  that  same  lamb, 

She  was  in  life  and  every  virtuous  lore  ; 

And  by  descent  from  royal  lineage  came 

Of  ancient  kings  and  queens,  that  had  of  yore 

Their  scepters  stretcht  from  east  to  western  shore. 

And  all  that  world  in  their  subjection  held ;  £^» 

Till  that  infernal  fiend  with  foul  uproar 

Forwasted  all  their  land,  and  them  expelled  ; 

Whom  to  avenge  she  had  this  Knight  from  far  compelled. 


THE  STANZA  119 

This  Spenserian  stanza  is  one  of  the  most  melodious 
instruments  that  ever  a  great  poet  played  on,  and  we 
need  not  wonder  that  Byron  and  Burns,  Keats  and 
Hood  borrowed  it  in  turn  and  evoked  delicious  music 
from  it.  Holmes  described  it  as 

The  sweet  Spenserian,  gathering  as  it  flows, 
Sweeps  gently  onward  to  its  dying  close, 
Where  waves  on  waves  in  long  succession  pour, 
Till  the  ninth  billow  melts  along  the  shore. 

Lowell  had  the  same  figure  of  speech  in  one  of  those 
critical  papers  of  his  which  were  always  informed 
with  the  insight  of  a  poet  into  the  mechanism  of  his 
art.  "  There  is  no  ebb  and  flow  in  the  meter  more  than 
on  the  shores  of  the  Adriatic,  but  wave  follows  wave 
with  equable  gainings  and  recessions,  the  one  sliding 
back  in  fluent  music  to  be  mingled  with  and  carried 
forward  by  the  next.  In  all  this  there  is  soothingness, 
indeed,  but  no  slumberous  monotony  ;  for  Spenser  was 
no  mere  metrist,  but  a  great  composer.  By  the  variety 
of  his  pauses  —  now  at  the  close  of  the  first  or  second 
foot,  now  of  the  third,  and  again  of  the  fourth  —  he 
gives  spirit  and  energy  to  a  measure  whose  tendency 
certainly  is  to  become  languorous.  He  knew  how  to 
make  it  rapid  and  passionate  at  need." 

Three  other  nine-line  stanzas  may  be  mentioned 
here.  One  of  them  is  Chaucer's,  of  which  the  rime- 
scheme  is  a,  a,  6,  a,  a,  6,  6,  c,  c.  A  second  is  that 
which  we  find  in  Poe's  "  Ulalume,"  where  the  rimes 
are  arranged  a,  6,  6,  a,  5,  a,  6,  a,  6,  the  final  a,  5, 
consisting  of  a  repetition  of  the  riming  words  of  the 
preceding  a,  6.  The  third  is  that  employed  by  Tenny- 
son in  "  The  Lady  of  Shalott,"  a,  a,  a,  a,  5,  c,  c,  c,  6, 


120  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

the  two  6  rime-words  being  always  SJialott  and  Came- 
lot,  which  thus  serve  as  a  double  refrain,  so  to  speak. 
This  nine-line  stanza  of  Tennyson's  may  be  compared 
with  Longfellow's  ten-line  stanza  in  "  The  Goblet  of 
Life":  — 

On  either  side  the  river  lie 
Long  fields  of  barley  and  of  rye, 
That  clothe  the  wold  and  meet  the  sky  ; 
And  through  the  field  the  road  runs  by 

To  many-towered  Camelot ; 
And  up  and  down  the  people  go, 
Gazing  where  the  lilies  blow 
Hound  an  island  there  below, 

The  island  of  Shalott. 

Although  many  poets  have  written  in  stanzas  of 
more  than  ten  lines,  few  of  these  longer  forms  have 
justified  themselves.  Ten  is  apparently  the  utmost 
limit  of  the  lines,  the  rimes  of  which  the  ear  can 
receive  without  undue  strain  on  the  attention.  Moore 
employed  a  thirteen-line  stanza  in  "  Fly  not  yet " ; 
Francis  Mahoney  used  sixteen  short-lines  in  his  "  Bells 
of  Shandon,"  ending  every  stanza  with  a  refrain  ;  and 
Swinburne,  ever  confident  in  his  strength  of  wing, 
strove  to  soar  aloft  in  a  stanza  of  twenty-four  lines  in 
his  "  Last  Oracle." 

The  consideration  of  the  combination  of  quatrains 
into  the  eight-line  stanza  and  of  five-line  stanzas  into 
ten-line  stanzas  led  to  the  temporary  overlooking  of  a 
shorter  stanza,  which  now  demands  consideration. 
This  is  the  six-line  stanza.  It  is  found  very  early  in 
English  verse,  as  in  this  "  Christmas  Carol,"  where 
the  rime-scheme  is  JB,  a,  a;,  a,  a?,  a :  — 

God  rest  you  merry,  gentlemen, 
Let  nothing  you  dismay, 


THE  STANZA  121 

Remember  Christ  our  Savior 

Was  born  on  Christmas  day: 
To  save  us  all  from  Satan's  power 

When  we  were  gone  astray. 

This  is  the  same  rime-scheme  as  we  find  in  Longfel- 
low's "  The  Village  Blacksmith,"  in  Willis's  "  Unseen 
Spirits,"  and  in  Poe's  "Annabel  Lee."  With  the 
first,  third,  and  fifth  lines  riming  together,  the  form 
seems  to  be  rare. 

Sometimes  the  six-line  stanza  is  made  up  of  three 
consecutive  couplets,  ez,  a,  5,  6,  c,  c,  as  in  Bunner's 
"  Forfeits  "  » :  — 

They  sent  him  round  the  circle  fair, 
To  bow  before  the  prettiest  there. 
I  'm  bound  to  say  the  choice  he  made 
A  creditable  taste  displayed; 
Although  —  I  can't  say  what  it  meant  — • 
The  little  maid  looked  ill-content. 

His  task  was  then  anew  begun  — 
To  kneel  before  the  wittiest  one. 
Once  more  that  little  maid  sought  he, 
And  went  him  down  upon  his  knee. 
She  bent  her  eyes  upon  the  floor  — 
I  think  she  thought  the  game  a  bore. 

He  circled  then — his  sweet  behest 
To  kiss  the  one  he  loved  the  best. 
For  all  she  frowned,  for  all  she  chid, 
He  kissed  that  little  maid,  he  did. 
And  then  —  though  why  I  can't  decide  — 
The  little  maid  looked  satisfied. 

Sometimes  it  is  composed  of  a  quatrain  with  alter- 
nate rimes  followed  by  a  couplet,  a,  5,  a,  5,  c,  c,  as 
in  this  "  Song  "  of  Shelley's :  - 

1  By  permission  from  Poem*,  by  H.  C.  Banner,  copyrighted,  1884, 
by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


122  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Rarely,  rarely  comcst  them, 

Spirit  of  Delight ! 
Wherefore  hast  thou  left  me  now 

Many  a  day  and  night  ? 
Many  a  weary  night  and  day 
'T  is  since  thou  art  fled  away. 

One  of  the  most  effective  arrangements  of  rimes  in 
the  six-line  stanza  is  that  which  we  see  in  Longfellow's 
"  Seaweed,"  in  Hood's  "  Progress  of  Art,"  and  in 
Holmes's  "  The  Last  Leaf."  The  scheme  is  a,  a,  6, 
c,  c,  b :  — 

I  saw  him  once  before, 
As  he  passed  by  the  door, 

And  again 

The  pavement  stones  resound, 
As  he  totters  o'er  the  ground 
With  his  cane. 

Effective  also  is  the  restriction  to  two  rimes  only,  as 
in  Longfellow's  "  Prelude,"  a,  5,  a,  a,  a,  b :  — 

Before  me  rose  an  avenue 

Of  tall  and  sombrous  pines  ; 
Abroad  their  fan-like  branches  grew, 
And,  when  the  sunshine  darted  through, 
Spread  a  vapor,  soft  and  blue, 

In  long  and  sloping  lines. 

The  six-line  stanza  was  a  special  favorite  of  Long- 
fellow's. In  "  The  Cumberland  "  he  essayed  still  an- 
other rime-scheme,  a,  6,  a,  c,  c,  b :  — 

Next  morn,  as  the  sun  rose  over  the  bay, 

Still  floated  our  flag  at  the  mainmast  head. 
Lord,  how  beautiful  was  Thy  day  ! 
Every  waft  of  the  air 
Was  a  whisper  of  prayer, 
Or  a  dirge  for  the  dead. 


THE  STANZA  123 

Burns  made  frequent  use  of  another  six-line  stanza 
with  only  two  rimes,  a,  a,  a,  6,  a,  6,  as  in  his  lines 
"  To  a  Mouse  "  :  — 

Still  thou  art  blest,  compared  wi'  me  ! 
The  present  only  toucheth  thee: 
But,  och!  I  backward  cast  my  e'e 

On  prospects  drear  1 
An'  forward,  though  I  cannot  see, 

I  guess  an'  fear ! 

The  seven-line  stanza  is  not  frequently  found, — 
far  less  frequently  than  the  stanza  of  five  lines.  It 
may  be  a  quatrain  and  a  couplet  with  a  final  line 
riming  with  either  pair  of  the  lines  of  the  quatrain,  as 
in  Swinburne's  resonant  invocation  "  To  Walt  Whit- 
man in  America  "  :  — 

Till  the  motion  be  done  and  the  measure 
Circling  through  season  and  clime, 

Slumber  and  sorrow  and  pleasure, 
Vision  of  virtue  and  crime; 

Till  consummate  with  conquering  eyes, 

A  soul  disembodied,  it  rise 

From  the  body  transfigured  of  time. 

The  seven-line  stanza  may,  of  course,  have  many 
other  arrangements  of  its  rime-scheme.  Rossetti,  for 
example,  in  "Love's  Nocturn,"  chose  to  limit  himself 
to  two  rimes,  a,  6,  a,  6,  6,  a,  6 :  — 

Master  of  the  murmuring  courts 

Where  the  shapes  of  sleep  convene!  — 
Lo  !  My  spirit  here  exhorts 

All  the  powers  of  my  demesne 

For  their  aid  to  woo  my  queen. 
What  reports 

Yield  thy  jealous  courts  unseen. 


124  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Tennyson,  in  his  "  Fatima,"  rimes  his  first  foul 
lines  together  and  his  last  three,  —  a,  a,  a,  a,  6, 6,  b :  — 

O  Love,  Love,  Love!  O  withering  mightl 
O  sun,  that  from  thy  noonday  height 
Shudderest  when  I  strain  my  sight, 
Throbbing  thro'  all  thy  heat  and  light, 
Lo,  falling  from  iny  constant  mind, 
Lo,  parch'd  and  wither'd,  deaf  and  blind, 
I  whirl  like  leaves  in  roaring  wind. 

But  the  fourfold  repetition  of  the  first  rime  and 
the  threefold  repetition  of  the  second  combine  to  give 
the  stanza  an  air  of  artificiality.  There  is  a  lack  of  the 
apparent  ease  and  spontaneity,  which  most  easily  cap- 
ture our  interest.  Indeed,  "  Fatima,"  for  all  its  poetic 
and  psychologic  power,  seems  to  be  one  of  Tennyson's 
less  successful  experiments. 


CHAPTER  VH 

THE   SONNET 

In  the  most  successful  pieces  of  poetical  composition,  the  struggle 
between  matter  and  form  is  not  visible.  Expression  and  thought  are 
adapted  and  mutually  helpful.  But  even  single  lines  ...  of  this  per- 
fection are  rare.  What  we  usually  find  is  metrical  skill  surpassing 
power  of  thought  .  .  .  or,  on  the  other  hand,  expression  laboring  with 
an  idea  which  it  is  unable  to  embody.  This  conflict,  which  takes  place 
in  that  part  of  poetic  effort  which  falls  within  the  domain  of  Art,  is 
most  perceptible  in  the  sonnet,  for  the  reason  that  this  is  the  one  form, 
which,  in  our  language,  has  been  brought  within  the  control  of  fixed 
rules.  —  MARK  PATTISON,  Introduction  to  Milton's  Sonnets. 

THE  stanza  has  been  considered  in  the  previous  chap- 
ter as  a  constituent  part  of  a  longer  poem,  as  a  single 
link  of  a  lengthening  chain.  Yet  it  may  be  independ- 
ent ;  it  may  stand  forth  alone  as  a  poem  complete  in 
itself.  There  are  very  brief  lyrics  in  a  single  stanza 
of  ten  lines,  or  of  five  or  even  of  two.  The  couplet  is 
the  shortest  possible  form  of  the  stanza,  and  it  has 
often  served  for  epigram.  There  is,  for  example,  Gay's 
epitaph  on  himself:  — 

Life  is  a  jest,  and  all  things  show  it. 
I  thought  so  once,  and  now  I  know  it. 

And  here  is  the  inscription  which  Pope  wrote  for 
the  collar  of  a  dog  that  belonged  to  the  Prince  of 

Wales:— 

I  am  his  Highness'  dog  at  Eew; 

Pray,  sir,  tell  me,  —  whose  dog  are  you  ? 

These  are  pretty  trifles  only,  crackling  with  wit ; 
but  the  couplet  has  also  served  to  present  airier  fancies 


126  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

or  sterner  thoughts,  as  in  these  two  lines  of  Herrick's 
"  Tears  and  Laughter  " :  — 

K  newest  thou  one  month  would  take  thy  life  awaj, 
Thou  'dst  weep  ;  but  laugh,  should  it  not  last  a  day. 

And  in  these  two  by  the  same  dextrous  lyrist,  on 
"Dreams":  — 

Here  we  are  all,  day  by  day  ;  by  night  we  're  hurled 
By  dreams,  each  into  a  several  world. 

The  couplet  has  sufficed  also  for  a  sterner  purpose 
in  Emerson's  "  Inscription  for  a  Well  in  Memory  of 
the  Martyrs  of  the  War  " :  — 

Fall,  stream,  from  Heaven  to  bless  ;  return  as  well ; 
So  did  our  sons ;  Heaven  met  them  as  they  fell. 

So  may  the  single  triplet  be  adequate  for  the  clear 
presentation  of  the  poet's  feeling  at  the  moment,  as 
in  this  three-line  poem,  also  by  Herrick,  "  On  Him- 
self":— 

Lost  to  the  world,  lost  to  myself,  alone 
Here  now  I  rest  under  this  marble  stone, 
In  depth  of  silence,  heard  and  seen  of  none. 

Landor  chose  the  triplet  once  for  the  modest  con- 
tribution "  Written  on  the  First  Leaf  of  an  Album  " :  — 

Pass  me  ;  I  only  am  the  rind 

To  the  rich  fruit  that  you  will  find, 

My  friends,  at  every  leaf  behind. 

Of  all  the  briefer  stanza  forms,  the  one  which  has 
most  often  been  chosen  for  the  expression  of  a  single 
thought  or  for  the  record  of  a  single  mood  or  feeling 
is  the  quatrain.  Many  poets  have  found  that  they 
could  phrase  a  fleeting  impression  better  in  four  lines 


THE  SONNET  127 

than  in  six  or  eight.  They  have  relished  the  sober  com- 
pactness of  this  form  which  imposes  a  stern  conden- 
sation. They  have  profited  by  the  possible  variety 
within  the  limitations  of  the  four  lines  —  the  choice  of 
any  one  of  three  rime-schemes,  a,  5,  a,  6,  or  a,  a,  6, 
6,  or  a,  &,  &,  a ;  the  option  between  any  one  of  the 
four  rhythms,  and  the  privilege  of  lengthening  or 
shortening  the  meter  of  any  line.  The  English  quat- 
rain has  slowly  come  to  be  recognized  by  the  lyrists 
of  our  language  as  a  fit  instrument  for  special  occa- 
sions, —  for  the  epitaph,  for  the  memorial  inscription, 
for  any  brief  utterance  which  would  gain  by  an  Attic 
concision  and  an  Attic  elevation  of  tone. 

Thus  Lowell  chose  the  quatrain  for  the  inscription 
which  he  was  asked  to  compose  for  the  Soldiers'  and 
Sailors'  Monument  in  Boston  :  — 

To  those  who  died  for  her  on  land  and  sea, 
That  she  might  have  a  country  great  and  free, 
Boston  builds  this  :  build  ye  her  monument 
In  lives  like  theirs,  at  duty's  summons  spent. 

Gilder  sent  a  quatrain  to  Lowell  himself  on  the 
latter 's  birthday:  — 

Navies  nor  armies  can  exalt  the  state,  — 
Millions  of  men,  nor  coined  wealth  untold  : 
Down  to  the  pit  may  sink  a  land  of  gold  ; 

But  one  great  name  can  make  a  country  great. 

For  two  memorial  windows  in  St.  Margaret's,  West- 
minster, Lowell  and  Whittier  prepared  quatrains.  The 
former  had  to  commemorate  Raleigh :  — 

The  New  World's  sons,  from  England's  breasts  we  drew 
Such  milk  as  bids  remember  whence  we  came  ; 

Proud  of  her  Past,  wherefrom  our  Present  grew, 
This  window  we  inscribe  with  Raleigh's  name. 


128  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

And  the  latter  did  homage  to  Milton :  — 

The  New  World  honors  him  whose  lofty  plea 
For  England's  freedom  made  her  own  more  sure, 

Whose  song,  immortal  as  its  theme,  shall  be 

Their  common  freehold  while  both  worlds  endure. 

The  quatrain  has  been  found  fit  for  other  purposes 
than  inscriptions  and  congratulations,  as  is  made  plain 
in  Aldrich's  "  Pessimist  and  Optimist "  :  — 

This  one  sits  shivering  in  Fortune's  smile, 
Taking  his  joy  with  bated,  doubtful  breath  ; 

This  other,  gnawed  by  hunger,  all  the  while 
Laughs  in  the  teeth  of  Death. 

Aldrich  maintained  that  the  quatrain  was  "  a  sur- 
prisingly difficult  form  of  poem,"  with  a  "difficulty 
out  of  all  proportion  to  its  brevity.  A  perfect  quat- 
rain is  as  rare  as  a  perfect  sonnet.  The  quatrain  has 
laws  as  imperative  as  those  of  the  sonnet,  not  to  be 
broken  with  impunity.  Four  lines  do  not  necessarily 
constitute  a  quatrain  proper  any  more  than  fourteen 
lines  necessarily  constitute  a  sonnet.  If  your  little 
stanza  ends  with  a  snap,  it  becomes  an  epigram  and 
ceases  to  be  a  poem.  The  idea  or  thought  expressed 
must  be  so  fully  expressed  as  to  leave  no  material  for 
a  second  stanza.  The  theme  that  can  be  exhausted  in 
the  space  of  four  lines  is  not  easy  to  light  upon.  Lan- 
dor  was  a  master  in  this  field." 

It  may  be  well  to  illustrate  this  last  assertion  by 
citing  two  of  Lander's  quatrains.  Here  is  one  written 
on  his  seventy-fifth  birthday :  — 

I  strove  with  none,  for  none  was  worth  my  strife ; 

Nature  I  loved,  and  next  to  Nature,  Art; 
I  warmed  both  hands  before  the  fire  of  life, 

It  sinks,  and  1  am  ready  to  depart. 


THE  SONNET  129 

And    here    is    another,   apparently  composed   even 
later :  — 

Death  stands  above  me,  whispering  low 

I  kuow  not  what  into  my  ear  ; 
Of  his  strange  language  all  I  know 

Is,  there  is  not  a  word  of  fear. 

Like  the  couplet,  the  quatrain  has  served  also  for  the 
purposes  of  satire ;  and  then  it  is  likely  to  end  with  a 
snap  and  to  become  an  epigram  rather  than  an  epi- 
graph. Here  are  the  vivacious  four  lines  which  Byron 
wrote  on  his  wedding-day,  January  the  second :  — 

Here 's  a  happy  New  Year  !  but  with  reason, 

I  beg  you  '11  permit  me  to  say  — 
Wish  me  many  returns  of  the  season, 

But  as  few  as  you  please  of  the  day. 

The  noblest  fixed  form  of  English  verse,  far  more 
valuable  than  the  couplet  or  the  quatrain,  which  have 
voiced  satire  more  often  than  not,  is  the  sonnet.  Al- 
though it  is  not  English  in  its  origin,  but  borrowed 
from  the  Italian,  it  has  been  firmly  established  in  our 
language  for  more  than  three  centuries.  It  has  proved 
itself  a  superb  instrument  for  the  supreme  masters  of 
English  poetry;  and  in  no  other  tongue  is  there  a 
more  splendid  collection  of  sonnets  than  in  our  own. 
And  yet  there  is  no  final  agreement  on  its  exact  form. 
The  sonnets  of  Shakspere  are  written  in  an  arrange- 
ment of  rimes  far  easier  than  that  in  which  the  son- 
nets of  Milton  are  composed.  Indeed,  most  of  those 
who  have  set  forth  the  theory  of  this  form  are  inclined 
to  deny  that  the  so-called  sonnets  of  Shakspere  are 
justly  entitled  to  the  name.  All  are  agreed  that  the 
sonnet  is  a  stanza  of  fourteen  iambic  pentameter  lines, 
complete  in  itself,  containing  a  single  thought  and  ex- 


130  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

pressing  this  adequately  and  amply.  Most  critics  would 
demand  more  than  this  ;  they  would  insist  that  the  true 
sonnet  conforms  to  a  special  scheme  of  rimes,  and  that 
no  fourteener  which  does  not  conform  to  this  scheme 
is  fairly  to  be  termed  a  sonnet. 

The  stanza  which  satisfied  Shakspere  consisted  sim- 
ply of  three  quatrains  followed  by  a  couplet.  Each  of 
the  three  quatrains  rimes  a,  6,  a,  &,  and  the  rimes  in 
each  of  the  three  are  distinct ;  and  distinct  also  are  the 
pair  of  rimes  in  the  final  couplet.  This  is  the  form  pre- 
scribed by  George  Gascoigne,  who  has  defined  it  as  "  a 
poem  of  fourteen  lines,  every  line  containing  ten  syl- 
lables, the  first  twelve  riming  in  staves  of  four  lines 
by  cross  meter,  and  the  last  two  riming  together." 
It  is  this  prescription  that  Shakspere  chose  to  follow. 
Here  is  his  one  hundred  and  thirty-ninth  sonnet,  as 
characteristic  as  any  :  — 

O,  call  ine  not  to  justify  the  wrong 

That  thy  unkind  ness  lays  upon  my  heart; 

Wound  me  not  with  thine  eye  but  with  thy  tongue, 
Use  power  with  power  and  slay  me  not  by  art. 

Tell  me  thou  lov'st  elsewhere,  but  in  my  sight, 
Dear  heart,  forbear  to  glance  thine  eye  aside: 

What  need'st  thou  wound  with  cunning  when  thy  might 
Is  more  than  my  o'er-press'd  defence  can  bide  ? 

Let  me  excuse  thee  :  ah  !  my  love  well  knows 
Her  pretty  looks  have  been  mine  enemies, 

And  therefore  from  my  face  she  turns  my  foes, 
That  elsewhere  they  might  dart  their  injuries : 

Yet  do  not  so,  but  since  I  am  near  slain, 
Kill  me  outright  with  looks  and  rid  my  pain. 

In  this  poem  we  note  that  every  quatrain  is  com- 
plete in  itself,  being  in  fact  almost  an  independent 


THE  SONNET  131 

stanza,  and  that  the  couplet  winds  up  the  brief  lyric 
with  a  sharp  snap  which  is  almost  epigrammatic  in  its 
temper.  If  Shakspere,  with  all  his  instinctive  feeling 
for  technic,  preferred  this  laxer  form  to  the  stricter 
and  more  limited  arrangement  of  the  true  Italian  son- 
net, it  was  not  because  he  was  unacquainted  with  that, 
since  it  had  been  already  attempted  by  not  a  few  of 
his  elder  contemporaries.  His  choice  was  probably 
due  to  his  belief  that  the  three  quatrains  and  the 
couplet  were  better  suited  for  his  own  immediate  pur- 
pose. As  an  acute  critic  has  declared,  Shakspere 
must  have  been  convinced  "  that  the  classic  symmetry 
of  the  Petrarchan  sonnet  was  in  English  too  difficult 
of  attainment ;  that  it  cramped  invention,  and  imposed 
too  many  sacrifices  and  concessions;  and  that  the 
artistic  end  could  better  be  achieved  by  the  looser  ar- 
rangement he  adopted."  Perhaps  it  may  be  suggested 
also  that  with  his  Elizabethan  liking  for  points  and 
conceits  and  antitheses,  he  felt  that  he  wanted  the 
final  couplet  with  its  epigrammatic  suggestion.  The 
same  sharp  critic  noted  also  that  Keats  wrote  his  earlier 
sonnets  in  one  of  the  stricter  Italian  forms,  but  in 
his  later  relapsed  into  the  freer  English  arrangement 
which  Shakspere  had  glorified.  The  most  marked  pecu- 
liarity of  the  Shaksperian  fourteener  is  that  there  is 
likely  to  be  a  break  in  the  sense  at  the  end  of  each  of 
the  three  quatrains,  and  that  the  couplet  is  thus  sharply 
set  off  by  itself.  This  is  wholly  contradictory  to  the 
theory  of  the  more  rigid  Italian  form,  where  the  divi- 
sion occurs  at  the  end  of  the  second  quatrain,  leaving 
a  large  opportunity  to  the  sestet  for  the  application  of 
the  thought  presented  in  the  octave. 

Having  chosen  his  form  for  reasons  sufficient  to 


132  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

himself,  Shakspere  revealed  his  keen  insight  into  its 
possibilities.  Commonly  he  developed  "  the  subject  in 
three  stages,  putting  the  conclusion  into  the  final 
couplet."  In  the  sixty-seventh  sonnet,  for  example, 
three  questions  are  asked,  one  in  each  quatrain ;  and 
the  answer  is  given  in  the  concluding  pair  of  lines. 

Ah  !  wherefore  with  infection  should  he  live, 

And  with  his  presence  grace  impiety, 
That  sin  by  him  advantage  should  achieve 

And  lace  itself  with  his  society  ? 
Why  should  false  painting  imitate  his  cheek, 

And  steal  dead  seeing  of  his  living  hue  ? 
Why  should  poor  beauty  indirectly  seek 

Roses  of  shadow,  since  his  rose  is  true  ? 
Why  should  he  live,  now  Nature  bankrupt  is, 

Beggar'd  of  blood  to  blush  through  lively  veins  ? 
For  she  hath  no  exchequer  now  but  his, 

And,  proud  of  many,  lives  upon  his  gains. 
O,  him  she  stores,  to  show  what  wealth  she  had 
In  days  long  since,  before  these  last  so  bad. 

In  other  sonnets,  Shakspere  varied  his  method.  It 
has  been  pointed  out  that  in  the  eighty-third  sonnet, 
«'  the  poet's  apology  for  silence  is  presented  as  an 
argument  in  three  clauses,  the  salient  fact  being  put 
in  the  couplet  as  strongly  as  possible  "  ;  and  that  in  the 
ninety-seventh  "  the  second  quatrain  puts  in  an  objection 
to  the  first,  which  is  met  by  the  third,  the  couplet  in 
this  case  being  treated  as  an  extension  of  the  third 
quatrain."  Now  and  again,  the  triple  division  of  the 
theme  into  the  three  quatrains  is  emphasized  "  by  the 
repetition  of  the  same  or  similar  words  at  the  begin- 
ning of  each  quatrain,"  as  in  the  forty-ninth  and  the 
hundredth. 

In  spite  of  the  weight  of  Shakspere's  example,  the 
large  majority  of  English  poets  have  preferred  to 


THE  SONNET  133 

adopt  a  stricter  form,  more  in  accord  with  the  Italian 
model,  although  not  a  few  of  them  have  clung  to  the 
final  couplet.  This  Italian  model  resembles  the  Shak- 
sperian  form  in  that  it  is  a  stanza  of  fourteen  iambic 
pentameter  lines  ;  and  it  differs  in  that  it  has  only  two 
quatrains  and  that  instead  of  seven  rimes  it  has  at 
most  five  and  often  only  four.  The  two  quatrains  have 
only  two  rimes  between  them,  arranged  a,  5,  6,  a, 
a,  6, 6,  a.  The  final  six  lines  are  allowed  more  liberty ; 
indeed  there  is  no  agreement  as  to  the  number  of  the 
rimes  or  as  to  their  order.  Sometimes  they  are  but 
two,  alternating  c,  c?,  c,  c?,  c,  d ;  and  sometimes  they  are 
three,  c,  (?,  e,  c,  d,  e. 

Milton's  massive  sonnet  "  On  the  Late  Massacres  in 
Piedmont "  may  be  taken  as  an  example  of  the  form 
which  has  only  four  rimes :  — 

Avenge,  O  Lord,  thy  slaughtered  Saints,  whose  bones 

Lie  scattered  on  the  Alpine  mountains  cold  ; 

Even  them  who  kept  thy  truth  so  pure  of  old, 
When  all  our  fathers  worshiped  stocks  and  stones, 
Forget  not  :  in  thy  book  record  their  groans 

Who  were  thy  sheep,  and  in  their  ancient  fold 

Slain  by  the  bloody  Piedmontese,  that  rolled 
Mother  with  infant  down  the  rocks.  Their  moans 
The  vales  redoubled  to  the  hills,  and  they 

To  heaven.  Their  martyred  blood  and  ashes  sow 
O'er  all  the  Italian  fields,  where  still  doth  sway 

The  triple  Tyrant  ;  that  from  these  may  grow 
A  hundredfold,  who,  having  learnt  thy  way, 

Early  may  fly  the  Babylonian  woe. 

This  has  a  sweeping  unity  of  theme  and  a  weighty 
austerity  of  thought.  Its  effect  is  intensified  by  the  long 
open  vowel-sounds  ay  and  o  which  end  the  final  lines. 
Its  unity  is  so  complete  that  it  does  not  comply  with 
the  requirement  sometimes  laid  down  that  the  thought 


134  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

shall  be  stated  in  the  first  eight  lines ;  that  there  shall 
be  a  break  at  this  point ;  and  that  then  the  thought 
shall  recoil  on  itself  in  the  last  six  lines.  This  condi- 
tion is  fulfilled  in  Gilder's  sonnet,  "The  Sonnet,"  in 
which  there  are  five  rimes,  two  in  the  quatrains,  a,  S,  5,  a, 
a,  6, 6,  a,  and  three  in  the  tercets,  c,  of,  e,  c,  d,  e :  — 

What  is  a  sonnet  ?  'T  is  the  pearly  shell 

That  murmurs  of  the  far-off  murmuring  sea ; 

A  precious  jewel  carved  most  curiously  : 
It  is  a  little  picture  paiuted  well. 
What  is  a  sonnet  ?  'T  is  the  tear  that  fell 

From  a  great  poet's  hidden  ecstasy  ; 

A  two-edged  sword,  a  star,  a  song  —  ah  me  I 
Sometimes  a  heavy  tolling  funeral  bell. 
This  was  the  flame  that  shook  with  Dante's  breath  ; 

The  solemn  organ  whereon  Milton  played, 

And  the  clear  glass  where  Shakespere's  shadow  falls : 
A  sea  this  is  —  beware  who  ventureth  ! 

For  like  a  fiord  the  narrow  floor  is  laid 

Mid-ocean  deep  sheer  to  the  mountain  walls. 

These  are  the  only  two  forms  of  the  sonnet  which 
are  admitted  to  be  absolutely  correct  by  the  purists 
and  precisians.  In  both,  the  quatrains  have  only  two 
rimes,  arranged  a,  6,  6,  a,  a,  6,  6,  a ;  and  in  one, 
the  final  six  lines  have  also  only  two  rimes,  each  re- 
peated alternately  three  times,  c,  d,  c,  c?,  c,  e?,  while 
in  the  other  the  final  six  lines  are  allotted  three 
rimes,  each  recurring  twice  in  regular  succession, 
c,  <?,  e,  c,  <?,  e.  But  if  we  seek  to  deduce  the  principle 
from  the  practice  of  the  masters  of  verse,  we  find  that 
there  this  rigid  rule  is  not  supported.  The  immense 
majority  of  English  son  net- writers  are  found  to  cling 
to  the  accepted  arrangement  of  the  octave ;  but  they 
are  unwilling  to  be  bound  by  any  law  which  shall 
limit  the  sequence  of  the  rimes  in  the  sestet.  Often 


THE  SONNET  135 

they  accept  one  or  the  other  of  the  approved  arrange- 
ments ;  but  often  also  they  reject  these,  for  reasons  of 
their  own,  unwilling  to  spoil  their  poem  for  the  sake 
of  an  arbitrary  rule,  the  validity  of  which  they  do  not 
feel  bound  to  acknowledge.  Here  again  the  test  is  the 
ear  of  the  hearer.  It  is  easy  for  the  ear  to  follow  the 
strict  arrangement  of  the  rimes  in  the  two  quatrains ; 
but  it  is  not  easy  for  the  ear  to  keep  up  the  counting 
in  the  later  lines,  especially  since  it  has  been  trained 
to  accept  either  of  two  arrangements.  So  long  as  the 
rimes  in  the  final  six  lines  are  two  or  three,  and  so 
long  as  the  final  couplet  is  avoided,  the  ear  is  satis- 
fied. The  sonnet  is  an  arbitrary  and  artificial  form, 
appealing  especially  to  the  cultivated  ear,  and  most  of 
those  who  appreciate  its  merits  are  likely  to  possess 
more  or  less  acquaintance  with  the  accepted  rules  of 
its  composition ;  therefore  any  failure  to  follow  these 
rules  is  likely  to  disappoint  these  hearers  and  to  dis- 
tract their  interest. 

Yet  it  seems  to  be  only  an  unjustifiable  hypercriti- 
cism  which  would  object  to  the  couplet  that  occurs  in 
the  middle  of  the  final  six  lines  of  Lang's  admirable 
sonnet  on  "  The  Odyssey  "  :  — 

As  one  that  for  a  weary  space  has  lain 
Lulled  by  the  song  of  Circe  aud  her  wine 
In  gardens  near  the  pale  of  Proserpine, 

Where  that  ^geau  isle  forgets  the  main, 

And  only  the  low  lutes  of  love  complain, 
And  only  shadows  of  wan  lovers  pine, 
As  such  an  one  were  glad  to  know  the  brine 

Salt  on  his  lips,  aud  the  large  air  again,  — 

So  gladly,  from  the  songs  of  modern  speech 
Men  turn,  and  see  the  stars  and  feel  the  free 
Shrill  wind  beyond  the  close  of  heavy  flowers, 
And,  through  the  music  of  the  languid  hours, 


136  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

They  hear  like  ocean  on  a  western  beach 
The  surge  and  thunder  of  the  Odyssey. 

If  fault  must  be  found  with  this  sonnet,  it  would 
not  be  that  the  lyrist  has  departed  from  the  strict  se- 
quence of  rimes,  c,  d,  e,  c,  d,  e,  substituting  his  own 
arrangement,  c,  d,  e,  e,  c,  d;  but  rather  that  he  has 
been  a  little  careless  of  tone-color,  in  ending  both  of  the 
rimes  of  his  quatrains  with  the  sound  of  n,  lain  and 
wine,  and  that  he  has  also  employed  the  sound  of  long  e 
in  two  of  the  three  rimes  of  his  sestet,  speech  and 
free.  A  similar  carelessness  is  to  be  discovered,  also, 
in  Wordsworth's  "  Scorn  not  the  Sonnet,"  in  which 
two  of  the  rimes  of  the  sestet  are  too  closely  akin, 
lamp,  land,  damp,  hand,  since  the  same  vowel-sound 
of  a  occurs  in  both  of  them,  intensified  by  the  pho- 
netic relation  of  the  m  to  the  n.  To  those  who  apply 
the  test  of  the  ear  this  will  seem  a  more  regrettable 
lapse  from  ultimate  perfection  than  the  use  of  a  final 
couplet :  — 

Scorn  not  the  Sonnet;  Critic,  you  have  frowned, 
Mindless  of  its  just  honors;  with  this  key 
Shakspere  unlocked  bis  heart;  the  melody 

Of  this  small  lute  gave  ease  to  Petrarch's  wound; 

A  thousand  times  this  pipe  did  Tasso  sound; 
With  it  Camoeus  soothed  an  exile's  grief; 
The  Sonnet  glittered  a  gay  myrtle  leaf 

Amid  the  cypress  with  which  Dante  crowned 

His  visionary  brow;  a  glow-worm  lamp 

It  cheered  mild  Spenser,  called  from  Faery-land 

To  struggle  through  dark  ways;  and,  when  a  damp 
Fell  round  the  path  of  Milton,  in  his  hand 

The  thing  became  a  trumpet  ;   whence  be  blew 

Soul-animating  strains  —  alas,  too  few. 

It  must  needs  be  noted  also  that  Wordsworth  has 
here  allowed  himself  the  license  of  changing  the  pair 


THE  SONNET  137 

of  rimes  in  the  middle  of  the  second  quatrain.  In- 
stead of  a,  6, 6,  a,  a,  6,  6,  a,  he  has  a,  6,  6,  a,  a,  c,  c,  a» 
And  yet  although  he  ventured  upon  his  departure  from 
the  form,  he  retained  the  same  vowel-sound  in  the 
middle  of  both  quatrains,  key  and  melody  in  the  first, 
and  grief  and  leaf  in  the  second.  It  seems  dimly  pos- 
sible that  as  he  had  emphasized  the  long  e  sound  in  the 
first  quatrain,  he  may  have  thought  that  the  ear  would 
catch  this  same  long  e  in  grief  and.  leaf,  and  that  he  was 
satisfied  with  this  repetition,  neglecting  or  unwittingly 
eliminating  the  in  significant  f  which  follows  the  longe 
in  the  second  quatrain.  It  was  hard  always  for  Words- 
worth to  put  on  the  fetters  of  any  fixed  form  ;  he  had  a 
tendency  to  lawlessness  of  structure ;  he  was  wilful  in 
going  his  own  way  in  his  own  fashion ;  and  it  may  be 
that  he  had  a  vague  consciousness  of  this,  which,  as 
Lowell  suggested,  made  him  welcome  the  restraint  of 
the  sonnet.  Nobility  of  thought  was  his  by  gift  of 
nature,  and  elevation  of  outlook;  but  in  the  minor 
matters  of  technic  he  needed  some  outside  stimulus  to 
keep  him  up  to  the  mark  of  his  highest  achievement. 
To  the  two  sonnets  on  the  sonnet  already  quoted 
here  may  be  added  a  third  by  Rossetti,  inferior  to 
Wordsworth's  in  its  imagination  no  doubt,  but  supe- 
rior in  its  technic :  — 

A  Sonnet  is  a  moment's  monument,  — 

Memorial  from  the  Soul's  eternity 

To  one  dead  deathless  hour.  Look  that  it  be, 
Whether  for  lustral  rite  or  dire  portent, 
Of  its  own  arduous  fulness  reverent: 

Carve  it  in  ivory  or  in  ebony, 

As  Day  or  Night  may  rule ;  and  let  Time  see 
Its  flowering  crest  impearl'd  and  orient. 
A  Sonnet  is  a  coin;  its  face  reveals 

The  soul,  —  its  converse,  to  what  power  'tis  due:  — 


138  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Whether  for  tribute  to  the  august  appeals 
Of  Life,  or  dower  in  Love's  high  retinue, 
It  serve;  or,  'mid  the  dark  wharf's  cavernous  breath, 
In  Charon's  palm  it  pays  the  toll  of  Death. 

It  is  especially  in  the  sonnet  that  Longfellow  re- 
vealed his  mastery  of  verse ;  and  he  was  prone  to  keep 
to  the  strict  letter  of  the  law,  taking  no  liberties  with 
the  form,  and  preferring  to  use  three  rimes  in  the  ses- 
tet, as  he  did  in  this  on  "  Nature  "  :  — 

As  a  fond  mother,  when  the  day  is  o'er, 

Leads  by  the  hand  her  little  child  to  bed, 

Half  willing,  half  reluctant  to  be  led, 

And  leave  his  broken  playthings  on  the  floor, 
Still  gazing  at  them  through  the  open  door, 

Nor  wholly  reassured  and  comforted 

By  promises  of  others  in  their  stead, 

Which,  though  more  splendid,  may  not  please  him 

more; 
So  Nature  deals  with  us,  and  takes  away 

Our  playthings  one  by  one,  and  by  the  hand 

Leads  us  to  rest  so  gently,  that  we  go 
Scarce  knowing  if  we  wish  to  go  or  stay, 

Being  too  full  of  sleep  to  understand 

How  far  the  unknown  transcends  the  what  we  know. 

Longfellow's  intuitive  feeling  led  him  to  avoid  the 
terminal  couplet.  Probably  he  would  have  agreed  with 
Aldrich  in  holding  that  the  strict  Italian  arrangement 
"  with  its  interwoven  rimes,  its  capacity  for  expressing 
subtle  music  is  an  instrument  as  superior  to  the  Eng- 
lish form  as  the  harp  or  the  guitar  is  superior  to  the 
banjo;  and  I  fancy  that  most  workers  in  this  kind  of 
verse  will  agree  with  me.  The  alternate  lines  riming, 
and  closing  with  a  couplet,  gave  the  poet  the  command 
of  some  of  the  richest  melodic  effects  within  the  reach 
of  English  versification.  The  sonnet  that  ends  with  a 


THE  SONNET  139 

couplet  misses  that  fine  unrolling  of  music  which  be- 
longs to  the  sonnet  proper.  The  couplet  brings  the 
reader  up  with  a  jerk.  In  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a 
hundred,  the  couplet  has  the  snap  of  a  whip-lash,  and 
turns  the  sonnet  into  an  epigram.  To  my  thinking,  this 
abruptness  hurts  many  of  Shakspere's  beautiful  poems 
of  fourteen  lines — for  they  are  simply  that.  One  must 
go  to  Milton,  and  Wordsworth,  and  Keats  (in  three 
instances)  in  order  to  find  the  highest  development  of 
the  English  sonnet." 

In  fact,  it  seems  to  be  the  opinion  of  most  of  the 
later  poets  of  our  language  that  if  the  game  is  to  be 
played  at  all,  it  is  best  to  follow  the  rules  without  cavil 
and  without  claiming  any  license  to  depart  from  them. 
There  is  no  obligation  on  any  poet  to  make  use  of  the 
sonnet  framework ;  and  if  he  would  express  himself 
without  restraint  he  has  at  his  command  the  large  lib- 
erty of  all  the  other  lyrical  forms.  It  is  in  the  rigidity 
of  its  skeleton  that  the  charm  of  the  sonnet  is  solidly 
rooted.  It  tends  to  impose  a  helpful  condensation,  thus 
counteracting  the  temptation  to  diffuseness.  Except 
for  the  narrow  limits  within  which  the  acceptance  of  the 
form  has  restricted  it,  many  a  poem  that  "  would  have 
been  but  a  loose  nebulous  vapor  has  been  compressed 
and  rounded  into  a  star," — so  Trench  declared;  "the 
sonnet,  like  a  Grecian  temple,  may  be  limited  in  its 
scope,  but  like  that,  if  successful,  it  is  altogether  per- 
fect." 

Tennyson  said  to  a  friend  that  "  a  sonnet  arrests  the 
free  sweep  of  genius,  and  if  poets  were  to  keep  to  it, 
it  would  cripple  them ;  but  it  is  a  fascinating  kind  of 
verse,  and  to  excel  in  it  is  a  rare  distinction."  And 
when  his  companion  suggested  that  the  last  line  should 


140  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

form  the  climax,  both  of  thought  and  of  expression, 
and  that  the  whole  should  be  like  a  wave  breaking  on 
the  shore,  Tennyson  declared  that  "  the  whole  should 
show  a  continuous  advance  of  thought  and  movement, 
like  a  river  fed  by  rillets,  as  every  great  poem  should." 

The  sonnet  is  thus  seen  to  be  not  only  a  form  of 
verse,  deliberately  accepted  and  conscientiously  filled, 
it  is  also  a  special  type  of  poem,  because  it  must  have 
an  absolute  unity  of  its  own.  It  must  have  its  single 
and  simple  theme,  lofty  and  yet  not  too  large  for  its 
frame  but  exactly  commensurate  with  this.  It  must 
move  in  every  line  toward  its  inevitable  conclusion, 
which  shall  be  full  and  satisfactory  to  the  ear  and  to  the 
mind.  It  must  be  ample  and  yet  reticent ;  and  it  must 
have  sustained  sonority,  culminating  impressively  in 
the  final  line.  It  must  be  impeccable,  beyond  all  other 
verse,  in  the  easy  perfection  of  its  rhythm,  its  meter, 
and  its  rime,  with  an  avoidance  of  all  dissonance  and 
jingle,  and  with  an  artful  contrast  of  the  vowel-sounds 
in  all  of  its  four  or  five  rimes.  Above  all,  it  must  be  not 
only  continuous  but  clear  in  its  central  thought,  since 
the  form  itself  is  complicated,  and  therefore  the  ear 
must  not  have  to  strain  itself  also  to  ascertain  the  poet's 
message.  Lowell  praised  Longfellow's  sonnets  espe- 
cially for  this  quality  of  clarity :  "  they  remind  me  of  one 
of  those  cabinets  we  sometimes  see,  in  which  many 
drawers  are  unlocked  by  a  single  key.  I  have  seen  son- 
nets in  which  there  is  a  separate  lock,  I  may  say,  for 
every  line,  and  in  fumbling  among  our  fourteen  keys 
we  find  ourselves  sometimes  in  certain  confusion. 
Added  to  this  there  would  be  sometimes  the  conundrum 
of  secret  drawers." 

This  limpidity  of  Longfellow  is  displayed  beautifully 


THE  SONNET  141 

in  one  of  his  sonnets  on  the  "  Divina  Commedia "  of 
Dante :  — 

Oft  have  I  seen  at  some  cathedral  door 
A  laborer,  pausing  in  the  dust  and  heat, 
Lay  down  his  burden,  and  with  reverent  feet 
Enter,  and  cross  himself,  and  on  the  floor 

Kneel  to  repeat  his  paternoster  o'er; 
Far  off  the  noises  of  the  world  retreat; 
The  loud  vociferations  of  the  street 
Become  an  undistinguishable  roar. 

So,  as  I  enter  here  from  day  to  day, 

And  leave  my  burden  at  this  minster  gate, 
Kneeling  in  prayer,  and  not  ashamed  to  pray, 

The  tumult  of  the  time  disconsolate 
To  inarticulate  murmurs  dies  away, 
While  the  eternal  ages  watch  and  wait. 

This  is  noble  in  tone  and  lofty  in  its  simple  imagery. 
There  is  special  felicity  in  the  richness  imparted  to 
the  versification  by  the  polysyllables  in  the  second  half. 
But,  if  a  blemish  must  be  sought,  it  can  be  found  in 
the  use  of  the  same  vowel-sound  in  both  of  the  rimes 
of  the  sestet.  The  long  a  in  gate,  disconsolate  and 
wait  reappears  in  day,  pray  and  away ;  and  this  is 
not  entirely  pleasing  to  the  ear,  —  if,  indeed,  it  is  not 
even  a  little  confusing. 

The  rigorous  limitation  to  fourteen  lines  of  pre- 
scribed and  equal  length,  the  restriction  of  the  rimes 
to  four  or  five  as  the  case  may  be,  the  intricate  arrange- 
ment of  these  rimes  according  to  the  Petrarchan 
pattern,  and  the  avoiding  of  the  terminal  couplet, — 
all  these  requirements  unite  to  make  the  sonnet  seem 
like  a  difficult  form.  And  yet  this  very  difficulty  may 
be  an  advantage.  Every  true  artist  finds  his  profit  in 
a  resolute  grapple  with  technical  obstacles,  a  struggle 
which  forces  him  to  take  the  utmost  pains  and  to  put 


142  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

forth  his  topmost  strength ;  and  he  gets  keen  pleasure 
out  of  this  tussle  with  his  material  and  with  his  form. 
The  very  limitation  of  the  rimes  of  the  sonnet  may 
be  suggestive  and  sustaining ;  and  the  poet  can  attain 
ultimate  freedom  within  strict  bounds. 

That  the  sonnet  is  not  so  difficult  as  it  may  seem 
at  first  sight  is  proved  by  the  multitude  of  English 
sonnets  which  rise  to  a  fairly  satisfactory  level  of 
technical  merit.  Few  of  the  major  poets  of  our  lan- 
guage have  failed  absolutely  in  this  form.  On  the 
other  hand,  only  a  few  even  of  the  greater  lyrists  have 
attained  to  high  distinction  as  sonneteers,  because  the 
sonnet  at  its  best  demands  a  union  of  imaginative  in- 
spiration, of  moral  aspiration,  and  of  technical  accom- 
plishment which  is  very  rarely  achieved.  And  a  poor 
sonnet  is  a  very  poor  thing,  indeed.  As  a  French  critio 
once  wittily  asserted,  "  nothing  is  longer  than  a  son- 
net when  there  is  nothing  in  it." 

Although  the  sonnet  is  best  fitted  for  the  expression 
of  a  single  thought  or  a  single  emotion  complete  in 
itself,  ample  for  the  form  and  yet  not  too  abundant 
for  its  limited  framework,  certain  poets  have  chosen 
to  use  it  almost  as  if  it  were  only  a  stanza.  They  have 
composed  a  succession  of  sonnets  on  a  central  theme, 
each  devoted  to  a  single  aspect  of  this.  These  sonnet- 
sequences,  as  they  are  termed,  were  particularly  pop- 
ular with  the  Elizabethans ;  and  they  have  been  at- 
tractive also  to  certain  of  the  Victorians,  especially 
to  Rossetti  and  Mrs.  Browning.  And  yet  the  sonnet- 
sequence  seems  to  be  rather  contradictory,  since  the 
unique  characteristic  of  the  sonnet  is  that  it  must  be 
the  perfect  expression  of  a  single  and  simple  thought 
or  mood.  To  treat  the  sonnet  merely  as  though  it  was 


THE   SONNET  143 

a  stanza  is  to  forego  this  special  quality,  without  any 
compensating  advantage.  It  is  to  adventure  on  the 
quest  for  a  necklace  of  flawless  and  priceless  pearls, 
all  of  equal  size  and  of  equal  value. 


CHAPTER 


OTHER   FIXED    FORMS 

The  six  most  important  of  the  poetic  creations  of  old  France,  the 
rondel,  the  rondeau,  the  triolet,  the  villauelle,  the  ballade,  and  the 
chant-royal.  .  .  .  Each  has  a  fixed  form,  regulated  by  traditional  laws, 
and  each  depends  upon  richness  of  rime  and  delicate  workmanship 
for  its  successful  exercise.  The  first  three  are  habitually  used  for  joy- 
ous or  gay  thought,  and  lie  most  within  the  province  of  jeu  d'esprit 
and  epigram  ;  the  last  three  are  usually  wedded  to  serious  or  stately 
expression,  and  almost  demand  a  vein  of  pathos.  —  EDMUND  GOSSE  : 
A  Plea  for  Certain  Exotic  Forms  of  Verse. 

THE  sonnet  is  the  noblest  of  all  fixed  forms,  with  a 
special  function  of  its  own.  The  quatrain  is  inferior 
to  the  sonnet,  if  only  by  reason  of  its  brevity;  but  it 
can  serve  on  occasion  even  for  imagination,  although 
it  seems  better  suited  to  fancy  or  to  wit.  There  is  also 
a  five-line  stanza  of  wide  popularity  which  confines 
itself  within  the  lower  realm  of  playful  humor,  often 
deriving  a  large  proportion  of  its  effect  from  the  in- 
ventive unexpectedness  of  its  double  and  treble  rimes. 
This  is  the  form  which  has  won  wide  recognition  under 
the  curious  title  of  the  "  limerick."  It  is  anapestic  in 
rhythm,  with  its  first,  second  and  fifth  lines  trimeter, 
and  its  third  and  fourth  dimeter.  Sometimes  the  rimes 
are  single  throughout,  as  in  this:  — 

There  was  a  young  lady  from  Lynn, 
Who  was  so  excessively  thin 

That  when  she  essayed 

To  drink  lemonade 
She  slipped  through  the  straw  and  fell  in. 


OTHER  FIXED  FORMS  145 

Sometimes  the  thrice-repeated  rime  of  the  trimeter 
lines  is  double,  as  in  this :  — 

There  was  once  an  ichthyosaurus, 

Who  lived  when  the  earth  was  all  porous; 

But  he  fainted  with  shame 

When  he  first  heard  his  name, 
And  departed  a  great  while  before  us. 

And  sometimes  these  longer  lines  have  a  triple  rime 
which  affords  abundant  scope  for  the  devising  of 
unlooked-for  collocations,  as  in  this  :  — 

Do  you  know  the  young  ladies  of  Birmingham, 
And  the  terrible  scandal  concerning  'em  ?  — 

How  they  took  their  hat-pins 

And  scratched  at  the  shins 
Of  the  bishop  while  he  was  confirming  'em  ? 

This  last  specimen  illustrates  the  special  opportunity 
of  the  limerick,  the  reward  it  pays  to  the  fertile  rime- 
ster.  Full  advantage  is  not  taken  of  the  form  when  the 
fifth  line  merely  repeats  the  terminal  word  of  the 
first,  as  in  this  :  — 

There  was  a  small  boy  of  Quebec, 
Who  was  buried  in  snow  to  his  neck, 

When  asked,  "  Are  you  friz  ?  " 

He  answered,  "  I  is,  — 
But  we  don't  call  this  cold  in  Quebec." 

In  view  of  its  widespread  popularity  wherever  the 
English  language  is  spoken,  there  is  no  denying  that 
the  limerick  is  a  definite  fixed  form. 

The  humble  limerick  has  the  distinction  of  being  the 
only  fixed  form  which  is  actually  indigenous  to  Eng- 
lish. The  sonnet  is  a  transplanted  exotic  which  has 
long  been  acclimatized  in  our  language.  And  the 
quatrain,  which  was  cultivated  in  both  Greek  and 


146  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Latin,  has  in  our  own  tongue  attained  an  importance 
not  paralleled  in  any  other  modern  language.  There 
are  other  fixed  forms  of  foreign  growth  which  have 
also  taken  root  in  English  versification,  —  most  of 
them  having  been  imported  from  France.  They  have 
not  succeeded,  any  of  them,  in  winning  equality  with 
the  sonnet,  but  they  afford  to  the  lyrist  the  same  op- 
portunity for  working  within  prescribed  bounds.  They 
have  the  fascination  of  apparent  difficulty,  the  over- 
coming of  which  is  likely  to  give  pleasure  to  the  lis- 
tener and  delight  to  the  artist.  And  each  of  them  has 
possibilities  of  its  own,  now  serious  and  now  comic. 

Of  these  imported  forms,  the  least  important  is  the 
triolet.  It  is  an  artificial  stanza  with  its  brief  lines  and 
its  treble  repetition  of  the  refrain ;  but  it  lends  itself 
readily  to  frank  fun  with  a  flavor  of  personality.  Al- 
though it  had  been  known  earlier  in  English  litera- 
ture, it  attracted  no  attention  until  it  was  revived  by 
Austin  Dobson,  —  to  whom,  more  than  to  any  other 
poet,  these  imported  fixed  forms  owe  their  vogue  with 
our  verse-makers.  The  triolet  is  at  its  best  when  it  is 
used  for  epigram,  for  a  single  swift  thrust  of  satire ; 
but  it  can  also  carry  playful  humor  with  a  faint  hint 
of  sentiment.  Although  its  multiplied  refrains  tend 
to  make  it  monotonous  if  heard  too  often,  Alphonse 
Daudet,  in  French,  and  Austin  Dobson,  in  English, 
have  ventured  on  triolet-sequences,  not  without  a  cer- 
tain measure  of  success  in  both  cases. 

The  triolet  is  a  stanza  of  eight  lines,  preferably 
brief,  containing  only  two  rimes,  arranged  a,  6,  a,  a, 
a,  6,  a,  6,  with  the  first  line  repeated  as  the  fourth 
and  again  as  the  seventh,  and  with  the  second  line  re- 
peated as  the  eighth.  Here,  as  an  example,  is  one  stave 


OTHER  FIXED  FORMS  147 

of  the  triolet-sequence  which  Austin  Dobson  entitled 
"  Rose-Leaves  "  :  — 

I  intended  an  ode, 

And  it  turned  into  triolets. 
It  began  a  la  mode. 
I  intended  an  ode, 
But  Rose  crossed  the  road 

With  a  bunch  of  fresh  violets  ; 
I  intended  an  ode, 

And  it  turned  into  triolets. 

Here  is  another  from  the  same  set  of  little  lyrics ; 
and  in  this  second  example  the  smiling  lyrist  has  been 
able  to  suggest  a  more  distinct  differentiation  of  mean- 
ing in  the  several  repetitions  of  the  refrain:  — 

Rose  kissed  me  to-day. 

Will  she  kiss  me  to-morrow  ? 
Let  it  be  as  it  may, 
Rose  kissed  me  to-day  ; 
But  the  pleasure  gives  way 

To  a  savor  of  sorrow  ;  — 
Rose  kissed  me  to-day,  — 

Will  she  kiss  me  to-morrow  ? 

Henley,  borrowing  the  hint  from  Dobson's  rondeau 
after  Voiture,  rimed  a  triolet  on  the  triolet  itself:  — 

Easy  is  the  Triolet, 

If  you  really  learn  to  make  it  I 

Once  a  neat  refrain  you  get 

Easy  is  the  Triolet. 

As  you  see  !  I  pay  my  debt, 

With  another  rime,  Deuce  take  it  ! 

Easy  is  the  Triolet, 

If  you  really  learn  to  make  it  ! 

But  by  its  undue  weight  and  by  its  condescending 
bluster  this  example  proves  that  the  triolet  is  really 
not  so  very  easy,  after  all:  —  or  at  least  it  is  evidence 
that  Henley  himself  could  not  rival  the  apparent  ease 


148  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

of  Dobson.  Part  of  the  heaviness  of  Henley's  speci- 
men is  due  to  the  riming  of  triolet  on  the  last  syl- 
lable, which  has  not  quite  emphasis  enough  for  this, 
just  as  part  of  the  lightness  of  the  first  of  Dobson's 
two  specimens  is  the  result  of  the  triple-riming  trio- 
lets and  violets.  It  is  sad  to  have  to  record  that  a 
pedantic  friend  persuaded  the  poet  that  triolets  was 
not  yet  an  English  word,  and  that  it  therefore  retained 
its  French  pronunciation,  which  forbade  its  mating 
with  violets,  whereupon  Dobson  transmogrified  his 
lightsome  lyric,  and  despoiled  it  of  not  a  little  of  its 
levity  as  well  as  of  most  of  its  truth:  — 

I  intended  an  Ode, 

And  it  turned  to  a  Sonnet. 
It  began  a  la  mode. 
I  intended  an  Ode; 
But  Rose  crossed  the  road 

In  her  latest  new  bonnet. 
I  intended  an  Ode, 

And  it  turned  to  a  Sonnet. 

One  cause  of  the  gossamer  unsubstantiality  of 
**  Rose-Leaves  "  is  the  brevity  of  the  line,  adjusting  it- 
self to  the  brevity  of  the  stanza  itself.  For  the  triolet 
the  meter  must  not  be  too  long ;  and  his  choice  of 
anapestic  dimeter  is  added  evidence  of  the  delicacy  of 
Dobson's  intuitive  feeling  for  propriety  of  rhythm. 
His  anapestic  dimeter  is  far  better  for  the  purpose  in 
hand  than  Henley's  trochaic  tetrameter.  The  triolet 
loses  a  little  of  its  lightness  even  when  the  line  is 
lengthened  from  anapestic  dimeter  to  anapestic  trime- 
ter, as  in  this  triolet  of  Bunner's :  — 

A  pitcher  of  mignonette, 

In  a  tenement's  highest  casement: 


OTHER  FIXED  FORMS  149 

Queer  sort  of  flower-pot  —  yet 
That  pitcher  of  mignonette 
Is  a  garden  in  heaven  set, 

To  the  little  sick  child  in  the  basement  — 
The  pitcher  of  mignonette, 

In  the  tenement's  highest  casement. 

And  there  is  in  this  example,  charming  as  it  is  in 
feeling,  a  regrettable  lapse  from  the  rigor  of  the  rules, 
in  that  the  fourth  and  seventh  lines  are  slightly  va- 
ried in  wording  from  the  first.  Perhaps  it  must  be 
said  also  that  the  sentiment  in  Bunner's  triolet  is  al- 
most too  serious  for  so  tricksy  a  form.  Yet,  as  is 
shown  in  these  two  triolets  by  Mme.  Duclaux  (A.  Mary 
F.  Robinson),  an  even  deeper  emotion  has  been  ex- 
pressed in  this  stanza :  — 

All  the  night  and  all  the  day 

I  think  upon  her  lying  dead, 
With  lips  that  neither  kiss  nor  pray 
All  the  night  nor  all  the  day. 
In  that  dark  grave  whose  only  ray 

Of  sun  or  moon's  her  golden  head; 
All  the  night  and  all  the  day 

I  think  upon  her  lying  dead. 

What  can  heal  a  broken  heart  ? 

Death  alone,  I  fear  me. 
Thou  that  dost  true  lovers  part, 
What  can  heal  a  broken  heart  ? 
Death  alone,  that  made  the  smart, 

Death,  that  will  not  hear  me. 
What  can  heal  a  broken  heart  ? 

Death  alone,  I  fear  me. 

It  may  not  be  fanciful  to  see  in  the  triolet  the 
source  of  the  captivating  stanza  which  Swinburne  de- 
vised for  his  lovely  lyric,  "  A  Match."  He  gave  up  the 
repetition  of  the  first  line  as  the  fourth ;  and  he  em- 


150  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

ployed  a  third  rime  for  the  third  and  fourth  lines 
linked  in  a  couplet :  — 

If  I  were  what  the  words  are, 
And  love  were  like  the  tune, 
With  double  sound  and  single 
Delight  our  lips  would  mingle 
With  kisses  glad  as  birds  are 

That  get  sweet  rain  at  noon; 
If  I  were  what  the  words  are, 
And  love  were  like  the  tune. 

If  you  were  queen  of  pleasure 

And  I  were  king  of  pain, 
We  'd  hunt  down  love  together, 
Pluck  out  his  flying  feather 
And  teach  his  feet  a  measure, 
And  find  his  mouth  a  rein; 
If  you  were  queen  of  pleasure 
And  I  were  king  of  pain. 

A  little  more  substantial  than  the  triolet  and  yet 
closely  akin  in  restriction  of  rime  and  in  repetition 
of  refrain  are  the  rondel  and  the  rondeau.  The  ron- 
del has  two  accepted  forms  in  English,  both  of  which 
are  due  to  the  example  set  by  Dobson,  who  has 
adapted  the  French  original  to  the  requirements  of 
our  English  tongue  with  the  same  certainty  of  touch 
that  Horace  revealed  when  he  modified  the  Greek 
sapphic  stanza  to  fit  the  needs  of  Latin.  In  the  fuller 
form,  the  rondel  consists  of  fourteen  lines  with  only 
two  rimes,  the  first  and  second  lines  being  repeated 
as  the  seventh  and  eighth  and  again  as  the  thirteenth 
and  fourteenth.  The  more  serious  possibility  of  the 
rondel  is  revealed  in  Bunner's  "  Ready  for  the 
Kide"1:  — 

1  By  permission  from  Poem*  by  H.  C.  Banner,  copyrighted,  1884| 
by  Charles  Scribner'a  Sons. 


OTHER  FIXED  FORMS  151 

Through  the  fresh  fairness  of  the  spring  to  ride, 
As  in  the  old  days  when  he  rode  with  her, 

With  joy  of  Love  that  had  fond  Hope  to  bride, 
One  year  ago  had  made  her  pulses  stir. 

Now  shall  no  wish  with  any  day  recur, 
(For  Love  and  Death  part  year  and  year  full  wide,) 
Through  the  fresh  fairness  of  the  spring  to  ride, 

As  in  the  old  days  when  he  rode  with  her. 

No  ghost  there  lingers  of  the  smile  that  died 
On  the  sweet  pale  lips  where  his  kisses  were  — 

Yet  still  she  turns  her  delicate  ear  aside, 

That  she  may  hear  him  come  with  jingling  spur— 

Through  the  fresh  fairness  of  the  spring  to  ride,       , 
As  in  the  old  days  when  he  rode  with  her.       .*  ^O 

*/7* 

The  other  form  of  the  rondel  is  exactly  the  same 

as  this,  except  that  it  consists  of  thirteen  lines  only, 
the  final  repetition  of  the  second  line  as  the  four- 
teenth being  discarded,  the  poem  ending  with  the  repe- 
tition of  the  first  line  as  the  final  line.  The  full  value 
of  the  rondel  in  this  slightly  curtailed  variation  is  dis- 
closed in  Austin  Dobson's  melodious  "  Wanderer  " :  — 

Love  comes  back  to  his  vacant  dwelling  — 
The  old,  old  Love  that  we  knew  of  yore! 
We  see  him  stand  by  the  open  door, 

With  his  great  eyes  sad,  and  his  bosom  swelling. 

He  makes  as  though  in  our  arms  repelling, 

He  fain  would  lie  as  he  lay  before; 
Love  comes  back  to  his  vacant  dwelling  — 

The  old,  old  Love  that  we  knew  of  yore  ! 

Ah,  who  shall  help  us  from  over-telling 

That  sweet  forgotten,  forbidden  lore! 

E'en  as  we  doubt  in  our  heart  once  more, 
With  a  rush  of  tears  to  our  eyelids  welling, 
Love  comes  back  to  his  vacant  dwelling. 


152  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

It  may  be  well  to  call  attention  to  the  unforced 
ingenuity  with  which  both  Banner  and  Dobson,  in 
these  two  rondels,  have  given  new  meaning  to  the  first 
line  of  their  charming  lyrics,  as  this  is  repeated  later 
in  their  poems.  This  is  a  point  too  often  neglected  by 
these  who  have  chosen  to  express  themselves  in  this 
form,  although  it  is  only  by  attaining  this  felicity  that 
the  repetition  of  the  refrain  can  be  made  interesting 
to  the  ear.  If  the  game  is  to  be  played  at  all,  the  poet 
must  willingly  abide  by  all  its  rules,  making  his  profit 
out  of  them.  He  must  know  what  they  are  when  he 
begins ;  and  he  must  do  his  best  within  the  rigorous 
code.  As  Stevenson  declared,  "  the  engendering  idea 
of  some  works  is  stylistic  ;  a  technical  preoccupation 
stands  them  instead  of  some  robuster  principle  of  life. 
And  with  these  the  execution  is  but  play ;  for  the  sty- 
listic problem  is  resolved  beforehand,  and  all  large 
originality  of  treatment  wilfully  foregone.  Such  are  the 
verses  intricately  designed,  which  we  have  learned  to 
admire,  with  a  certain  smiling  admiration,  at  the  hands 
of  Mr.  Lang  and  Mr.  Dobson."  And  when  the  pattern 
of  the  intricate  design  is  once  attempted,  the  execution, 
playful  though  it  may  be,  must  concord  therewith. 

Swinburne  rejected  both  of  the  established  varia- 
tions of  the  rondel  and  devised  a  form  which  he  called 
a  roundel,  and  in  which  he  composed  a  hundred  lyrics. 
For  this  "  Century  of  Eoundels  "  he  wrote  one  more  in 
which  he  exemplified  and  explained  the  form  he  had 
devised  to  suit  himself :  — 

A  roundel  is  wrought  as  a  ring  or  a  star-bright  sphere, 
With  craft  of  delight  and  cunning  of  sound  unsought, 
That  the  heart  of  the  hearer  may  smile  if  to  pleasure  his  ear 
A  roundel  is  wrought. 


OTHER  FIXED  FORMS  153 

Its  jewel  of  music  is  carved  of  all  or  of  aught  — 

Love,  laughter,  or  mourning,  remembrance  of  rapture  or 

fear  — 
That  fancy  may  fashion  to  hang  in  the  ear  of  thought. 

As  a  bird's  quick  song  runs  round,  and  the  hearts  in  us  hear 
Pause  answer  to  pause,  and  again  the  same  strain  caught, 
So  moves  the  device  whence,  round  as  a  pearl  or  a  tear, 
A  roundel  is  wrought. 

This  roundel  Swinburne  may  have  wrought  himself 
with  craft  of  delight ;  but  the  device  has  failed  to 
charm  other  lyrists.  Perhaps  the  reason  may  be  that 
the  line  is  a  little  too  long  and  too  full  for  so  light  a 
thing,  or,  that  since  its  inventor  had  composed  five- 
score lyrics  in  this  mold  of  his  own,  he  had  exhausted 
all  its  possibilities.  Of  course,  the  failure  of  the  roundel 
may  have  an  even  simpler  explanation,  —  that  no 
other  poet  cared  to  venture  on  a  rivalry  with  Swin- 
burne in  a  field  which  that  master  of  verse  had  fenced 
in  for  the  exercise  of  his  own  surpassing  metrical 
dexterity. 

The  rondel  is  ampler  than  the  triolet  and  fitted  for 
a  wider  and  higher  range  of  themes ;  and  its  sister 
form,  the  rondeau,  is  perhaps  still  a  finer  instrument. 
The  rondeau  has  continually  tempted  English  rime- 
sters ;  Wyatt  essayed  himself  in  this  form  in  his  day ; 
and  again  in  Canning's  time  it  reappeared  to  serve  as 
a  vehicle  for  partisan  satire.  Praed  must  have  had 
these  political  verses  in  mind  when  he  wrote :  — 

And  some  compose  a  tragedy, 

And  some  compose  a  rondo  : 
And  some  draw  sword  for  liberty, 

And  some  draw  pleas  for  John  Doe. 

Yet  Leigh  Hunt  did  not  know  the  exact  form  when 


154  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

he  composed  what  he  called  a  rondeau  to  commemo 
rate  his  being  kissed  by  Mrs.  Carlyle :  — 

Jenny  kissed  me  when  we  met, 

Jumping  from  the  chair  she  sat  in  ; 

Time,  you  thief  !  who  love  to  get 
Sweets  into  your  list,  put  that  in. 

Say  I  'm  weary,  say  I  'm  sad  ; 

Say  that  health  and  wealth  have  missed  me  ; 

Say  I  'm  growing  old  ;  but  add  — 
Jenny  kissed  me ! 

The  true  form  was  revived  by  Dobson,  to  whom  it 
has  owed  its  later  popularity.  He  has  used  it  more 
often  and  to  better  effect  than  any  of  the  many  minor 
bards  who  have  followed  in  his  footsteps  both  in  Great 
Britain  and  in  the  United  States.  The  rondeau  consists 
of  thirteen  lines  with  only  two  rimes  between  them ; 
and  it  has  also  an  unrimed  refrain  after  the  eighth 
line  and  after  the  thirteenth,  this  refrain  being  the  first 
four  syllables  of  the  first  line.  Lope  de  Vega  once 
wrote  a  sonnet  on  the  difficulty  of  writing  a  sonnet ; 
and  it  was  this  playful  Spanish  lyric  which  probably 
suggested  to  Voiture  the  composition  of  a  rondeau  on 
the  difficulty  of  writing  a  rondeau.  This  clever  trifle 
of  Voiture's  Dobson  has  most  cleverly  adapted  into 
English :  — 

You  bid  me  try,  blue  eyes,  to  write 
A  rondeau.  What !  —  forthwith  ?  —  to-night  ? 
Reflect,  some  skill  I  have,  't  is  true  ; 
But  thirteen  Hues  —  and  rimed  on  two  — 
"  Refrain  "  as  well.  Ah,  hapless  plight  I 

Still,  there  are  five  lines,  — ranged  aright 
These  Gallic  bonds,  I  feared,  would  fright 
My  easy  Muse.  They  did,  till  you  — 
You  bid  me  trv  ! 


OTHER  FIXED  FORMS  155 

This  makes  them  nine.  The  port  'a  in  sight ; 

'T  is  all  because  your  eyes  are  bright !      £(_ 
Now  just  a  pair  to  end  with  "  oo  " — 
When  maids  command,  what  can't  we  do  ? 

Behold  J  the  rondeau  —  tasteful,  light  — 
You  bid  me  try  ! 

In  an  article  written  in  1877,  before  his  own  ex- 
amples had  won  favor  for  the  form,  Dobson  asserted 
that  there  was  "  no  real  reason  why  the  rondeau 
should  not  become  as  popular  in  its  own  line  as  the 
sonnet," — a  prophecy  which  has  not  quite  been  ful- 
filled, partly  because  "  its  own  line  "  has  less  breadth 
of  appeal  than  that  of  the  sonnet.  The  rondeau,  satis- 
factory as  it  is  for  the  purposes  for  which  it  is  fit,  lacks 
the  large  variety  of  the  sonnet,  which  can  voice  all 
moods  of  sentiment  and  of  passion.  In  this  same  essay, 
Dobson  declared  that  to  learn  the  inner  secret  of  the 
rondeau,  "to  give  the  refrain  a  new  savor  and  fra- 
grance at  each  repetition  by  some  covert  art  of  setting, 
and  to  make  it  seem  mere  bubbling  over,  as  it  were, 
of  the  eighth  and  thirteenth  lines,  —  these  are  things 
which  only  masters  of  the  lyre  can  attain  to." 

To  vary  the  content  of  the  four  sounds  which  con- 
stitute the  refrain,  a  daring  rirnester  now  and  then  has 
risked  a  play  upon  words.  This  is  justified  by  the  pre- 
cedent of  the  French  ;  and  yet  it  does  not  recommend 
itself  heartily  to  us  with  our  confirmed  belief  that  the 
pun  belongs  to  a  subordinate  order  of  wit.  Still  it  may 
be  well  to  give  an  example  of  this  method  of  solving 
the  problem;  and  here  is  a  rondeau  entitled  "Sub 
Rosa":  — 

Under  the  rows  of  gas-jets  bright, 
Bathed  in  a  blazing  river  of  light, 


156  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

A  regal  beauty  sits ;  above  her 
The  butterflies  of  fashion  hover, 
And  burn  their  wings,  and  take  to  flight. 

Mark  you  her  pure  complexion,  —  white 
Though  flush  may  follow  flush  ?  Despite 
Her  blush,  the  lily  I  discover 
Under  the  rose. 

All  compliments  to  her  are  trite  ; 
She  has  adorers  left  and  right ; 

And  I  confess  here,  under  cover 

Of  secrecy,  I  too  —  I  love  her  ! 
Say  naught.  She  kuows  it  not.  'T  is  quite 
Under  the  rose. 

That  the  rondeau  can  aspire  to  more  than  the  hinted 
sentiment  and  the  external  gaiety  of  familiar  verse, 
and  that  it  can  stand  forth  on  occasion  as  worthy  of 
comparison  even  with  the  sonnet,  Dobson  himself  has 
proved  in  more  than  one  of  his  lyrics  in  this  seemingly 
narrow  form.  In  none  has  he  done  this  with  more 
masterly  certainty  than  in  this :  — 

In  after  days  when  grasses  high 

O'er-top  the  stone  where  I  shall  lie, 

Though  ill  or  well  the  world  adjust 
My  slender  claim  to  honored  dust, 

I  shall  not  question  nor  reply. 

I  shall  not  see  the  morning  sky ; 
I  shall  not  hear  the  night-wind  sigh ; 
1  shall  be  mute,  as  all  men  must 
In  after  days. 

But  yet,  now  living,  fain  were  I 

That  some  one  then  should  testify, 
Saying  —  He  held  his  pen  in  trust 
To  Art,  not  serving  shame  or  lust. 

Will  none  ?  —  Then,  let  my  memory  die 
In  after  days ! 


OTHER  FIXED  FORMS  157 

As  there  are  two  slightly  different  types  of  rondel, 
so  there  are  two  varieties  of  the  rondeau.  The  type  ob- 
served by  Voiture  is  that  just  considered ;  and  the 
type  used  by  Villon  departs  from  it  botli  in  the  reduc- 
tion of  the  number  of  lines  to  ten  and  in  the  condensing 
of  the  refrain  to  a  single  word.  Here  is  John  Payne's 
English  rendering  of  one  of  Villon's  lyrics  in  this 
more  compact  type:  — 

Death,  of  thy  rigor  I  complain, 
That  hast  my  lady  borne  from  me, 
And  yet  will  not  contented  be 
Till  from  me  too  all  strength  be  ta'en 
For  lauguishment  of  heart  and  brain. 
What  harm  did  she  in  life  to  thee, 
Death  ? 

One  heart  we  had  betwixt  us  twain  ; 
Which  being  dead,  I  too  must  dree 
Death,  or,  like  carven  saints  we  see 

In  choir,  sans  life  to  live  be  fain, 
Death  ! 

Although  this  is  disfigured  by  the  unnecessary  and 
unfortunate  repetition  of  the  refrain-word  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  next  to  the  last  line,  it  is  a  fairly  satis- 
factory example  of  the  shorter  type  of  the  rondeau  ; 
and  it  exhibits  the  inferiority  of  this  to  the  more  gen- 
erous type  which  Dobson  has  employed  for  themes 
both  grave  and  gay.  The  briefer  type  seems  to  lack 
something  of  the  "  nimble  movement,  speed,  grace, 
lightness  of  touch,"  which  Banville  held  to  be  the 
foremost  characteristics  of  the  rondeau. 

The  villanelle  has  an  intricacy  of  its  own  not  quite 
of  the  same  kind  as  the  complexity  of  the  triolet,  the 
rondel,  and  the  rondeau.  The  villanelle  consists  of  five 


158  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

stanzas  of  three  lines  each  and  of  a  sixth  stanza  of 
four ;  it  has  only  two  rimes ;  and  the  last  line  of 
the  first  stanza  recurs  as  the  last  line  of  the  third, 
fifth  and  sixth  stanzas,  while  the  first  line  reappears  as 
the  final  line  of  the  second  and  fourth  stanzas  and 
also  as  the  third  line  of  the  final  quatrain.  Here  again 
the  most  successful  example  is  one  of  Austin  Dob- 
son's,  an  alluring  portrayal  of  fascinating  maidenhood 
limned  with  the  assured  swiftness  of  an  etching :  — 

When  I  saw  you  last,  Rose, 

You  were  only  so  high  ;  — 
How  fast  the  time  goes  i 

Like  a  bud  ere  it  blows* 

You  just  peeped  at  the  sky, 
When  I  saw  you  last,  Rose. 

Now  your  petals  unclose, 

Now  your  May- time  is  nigh;  — 
How  fast  the  time  goes  ! 

And  a  life,  —  how  it  grows  ! 

You  were  scarcely  so  shy, 

When  I  saw  you  last,  Rose  ! 

In  your  bosom  it  shows 

There  's  a  guest  on  the  sly  ; 
How  fast  the  time  goes  ! 

[s  it  Cupid  ?  Who  knows  ! 
Yet  you  used  not  to  sigh, 
When  I  saw  you  last,  Rose 
How  fast  the  time  goes  I 

In  the  exquisite  simplicity  of  this  lyric,  with  its 
touch  of  tenderness  and  with  its  glancing  humor,  the 
delicate  effect  is  due  in  part  to  the  felicity  of  the 
meter,  anapestic  dimeter,  which  here  proves  its  appro* 


OTHER  FIXED  FORMS  159 

priateness  for  this  linked  sequence  of  little  stanzas. 
If  the  meter  is  changed,  something  of  the  lightness 
and  brightness  is  immediately  lost,  as  we  are  con- 
vinced when  we  compare  Dobson's  triumph  with  this 
labored  effort  of  Henley's :  — 

A  dainty  thing 's  the  villanelle, 
Sly,  musical,  a  jewel  in  rime. 
It  serves  its  purpose  passing  well. 

A  double-clappered  silver  bell 

That  must  be  made  to  clink  in  chime, 
A  dainty  thing 's  the  villanelle; 

And  if  you  wish  to  flute  a  spell, 

Or  ask  a  meeting  'neath  the  lime, 
It  serves  its  purpose  passing  well. 

You  must  not  ask  of  it  the  swell 

Of  organs  grandiose  and  sublime  — 
A  dainty  thing 's  the  villanelle ; 

And  filled  with  sweetness,  as  a  shell 

Is  filled  with  sound,  and  launched  in  time, 
It  serves  its  purpose  passing  well. 

Still  fair  to  see  and  good  to  smell 

As  in  the  quaintness  of  its  prime, 
A  dainty  thing 's  the  villanelle, 
It  serves  its  purpose  passing  well. 

In  this  rather  lumbering  attempt,  the  effort  to  be 
airy  is  a  little  too  obvious,  and  the  vivacity  is  evidently 
a  little  forced.  But  the  fundamental  mistake  of  the 
writer  was  in  the  selection  of  his  meter,  iambic  tetra- 
meter, which  lacks  the  ethereal  ease  of  the  anapestic 
dimeter.  Yet  the  iambic  tetrameter  is  not  out  of 
place  when  the  theme  is  statelier,  as  Lang  made  plain 
in  this  congenial  appreciation  of  Theocritus :  — 


160  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Apollo  left  the  queenly  Muse, 

And  shepherded  a  mortal's  sheep, 
Theocritus  of  Syracuse ! 

With  thee  to  lead  the  lambs  and  ewes 

Where  Milon  and  where  Battus  reap, 
Apollo  left  the  queenly  Muse. 

With  thee,  he  loitered  in  the  dews, 

He  slept  the  swain's  unfever'd  sleep, 
Theocritus  of  Syracuse  ! 

To  watch  the  tunny-fishers  cruise 
Below  the  sheer  Sicilian  steep, 
Apollo  left  the  queenly  Muse. 

And  now  with  bis  might  Time  confuse 

Thy  songs,  like  his  that  laugh  and  leap, 
Theocritus  of  Syracuse ! 

To  sing  with  thee  beside  the  deep, 
Or  where  JStnsean  waters  weep, 
Theocritus  of  Syracuse, 
Apollo  left  the  queenly  Muse. 

Of  all  these  French  forms,  the  noblest  by  far  is  the 
ballade,  the  largest  in  its  framework,  the  widest  in 
its  range,  and  the  most  varied  in  its  possibilities.  It 
has  had  the  supreme  advantage  of  serving  early  as 
the  instrument  of  a  true  poet,  Villon,  that  "  warm 
voice  out  of  the  slums  of  Paris,"  as  Matthew  Arnold 
called  him.  Yet  the  form  soon  lost  its  popularity  in 
France ;  and  the  poet-critics  of  the  Plei'ade  were 
hostile  to  it,  although  they  accepted  the  sonnet  will- 
ingly enough.  The  ballade  crossed  the  channel  into 
England  as  early  as  Chaucer's  time ;  and  he  may  have 
borrowed  from  it  the  stanza  which  he  made  his  own 
(the  eight  lines  of  iambic  tetrameter  riming  a,  b,  6, 


OTHER  FIXED  FORMS  161 

a,  a,  c,  a,  c),  and  which  Spenser  took  as  the  founda- 
tion of  his  own  superb  stave.  Yet  the  ballade  fell  out 
of  favor  in  English  as  it  had  fallen  out  of  favor  in 
France  ;  and  not  until  after  Theodore  de  Banville  had 
revived  it  in  Paris  and  exhibited  anew  its  lyric  grace 
and  its  adaptability  to  both  pathetic  and  jocular 
themes,  did  the  ballade  regain  its  footing.  It  was  Ban- 
ville's  book  of  "Trente-six  Ballades  Joyeuses"  which 
moved  Dobson  to  write  "  The  Prodigals  " ;  and  his  ex- 
ample was  followed  at  once  by  Andrew  Lang  and  also, 
after  an  interval,  by  Swinburne.  It  was  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  that 
these  various  French  forms  renewed  their  citizenship 
in  English  poetry ;  and  in  the  years  that  have  passed 
since  they  were  gladly  acclaimed,  they  have  continued 
to  allure  many  lyrists  of  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States.  When  the  warmth  of  their  first  welcome  was 
chilled  by  the  lapse  of  time,  most  of  them  lost  a  little 
of  their  vogue.  But  the  ballade  has  rooted  itself 
solidly  in  our  poetry ;  it  is  as  definitely  acclimatized 
as  the  sonnet,  although  it  has  not  yet  taken  captive 
as  many  of  the  major  bards  of  our  tongue.  It  lacks 
the  stern  compression  of  the  sonnet  and  the  lofty 
simplicity  of  that  Italian  form ;  but  it  has  its  own 
field  and  it  serves  its  own  purpose,  less  serious  than 
the  sonnet,  but  fitter  for  themes  where  sentiment  and 
humor  disclose  themselves  in  turn,  like  twins  playing 
hide-and-seek. 

The  ballade  has  two  variations  of  type,  of  which 
the  shorter  is  more  characteristic  of  the  form  and  is 
more  firmly  intrenched  in  popular  favor.  This  con- 
sists of  three  stanzas  of  eight  lines  each  and  a  final 
quatrain ;  it  has  only  three  rimes  in  all  its  twenty- 


162  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

eight  lines,  every  octave  abiding  by  the  same  rime- 
scheme,  o,  6,  a,  6,  6,  c,  5,  c,  the  final  quatrain  rim- 
ing 6,  c,  6,  c.  This  quatrain  is  called  the  Envoy ;  and 
it  was  originally  addressed  directly  to  the  king  or 
prince  or  dignitary  in  whose  honor  the  ballade  had 
been  rimed.  The  final  quatrain  and  each  of  the 
three  staves  must  end  with  the  same  line,  absolutely 
unvaried  in  wording,  however  modified  it  may  be  in 
meaning.  Thus,  the  ballade  displays  itself  as  a  tiny 
comedy  in  three  acts,  with  the  envoy  as  an  epilog 
spoken  to  the  public.  Here  is  Andrew  Lang's  "  Bal- 
lade of  Old  Plays,"  evoked  by  an  edition  of  Moliere 
published  in  Paris  in  1667  :  — 

La  Cour 
When  these  Old  Plays  were  new,  the  King, 

Beside  the  Cardinal's  chair, 
Applauded,  'mid  the  courtly  ring, 

The  verses  of  Moliere  ; 

Point-lace  was  then  the  only  wear, 
Old  Corneille  came  to  woo, 

And  bright  Du  Pare  was  young  and  fair, 
When  these  Old  Plays  were  new  I 

La  Comedie 
How  shrill  the  butcher's  cat-calls  ring, 

How  loud  the  lackeys  swear  I 
Black  pipe-bowls  on  the  stage  they  fling, 

At  Bre'court,  fuming  there  ! 

The  Porter 's  stabbed  !  a  Mousquetaire 
Breaks  in  with  noisy  crew  — 

'T  was  all  a  commonplace  affair 
When  these  Old  Plays  were  new  1 

La  Ville 

When  these  Old  Plays  were  new  !  They  bring 
A  host  of  phantoms  rare  : 


OTHER  FIXED  FORMS  163 

Old  jests  that  float,  old  jibes  that  sting, 

Old  faces  peaked  with  care  : 

Menage's  smirk,  de  Vise"s  stare, 
The  thefts  of  Jean  Ribou,  — 

Ah,  publishers  were  hard  to  bear 
When  these  Old  Plays  were  new  I 

Envoy 
Ghosts,  at  your  Poet's  word  ye  dare 

To  break  Death's  dungeons  through, 
And  frisk,  as  in  that  golden  air, 

When  these  Old  Plays  were  new  ! 

The  other  variation  of  the  ballade  employs  a  stanza 
of  ten  lines  with  four  rimes,  a,  6,  a,  6,  6,  c,  c,  <?,  c,  c?, 
and  it  therefore  lacks  the  couplet  which  links  the  oc- 
tave together  in  the  middle,  as  exemplified  in  Lang's 
lilting  lyric.  Banville  was  emphatic  in  asserting  the 
importance  of  this  internal  couplet,  warning  the  bal- 
lade-makers against  composing  separately  the  two 
quatrains  of  the  octave,  since  this  was  a  process  likely 
to  give  the  stanza  a  broken  back.  In  the  absence  of 
this  internal  couplet  in  the  longer  variation  of  the 
ballade,  the  back  of  the  stanza  must  bear  the  weight 
of  ten  lines  as  best  it  may.  The  increase  of  the  num- 
ber of  rimes  also  diminishes  the  difficulty  of  the  task 
the  poet  has  undertaken,  and  thereby  robs  the  ballade 
of  a  part  of  its  charm.  Yet  this  second  type  is  not 
without  admirers ;  and  here  is  Gosse's  lyric  written 
just  after  the  death  of  Theodore  de  Banville :  — 

One  ballade  more  before  we  say  good-night, 
O  dying  Muse,  one  mournful  ballade  more ; 

Then  let  the  new  men  fall  to  their  delight, 
The  Impressionist,  the  Decadents,  a  score 
Of  other  fresh  fanatics,  who  adore 

Quaint  demons,  and  disdain  thy  golden  shrine; 

Ah  1  faded  goddess,  thou  wert  held  divine 


164  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

When  we  were  young  !  But  now  each  laureled  head 
Has  fallen,  and  fallen  the  ancient  glorious  line  ; 
The  last  is  gone,  since  Banville  too  is  dead. 

Peace,  peace  a  moment,  Dolorous  Ibsenite  ! 

Pale  Tolstoiat,  moaning  from  the  Euxine  shore  I 
Heredity,  to  dreamland  take  thy  flight ! 

And,  fell  Psychology,  forbear  to  pour 

Drop  after  drop  thy  dose  of  hellebore, 
For  we  look  back  to-night  to  ruddier  wine 
And  gayer  singing  than  those  moans  of  thine  ! 

Our  skies  were  azure  once,  our  roses  red, 
Our  poets  once  were  crowned  with  eglantine  ; 

The  last  is  gone,  since  Banville  too  is  dead. 

With  flutes  and  lyres  and  many  a  lovely  rite 

Through  the  mad  woodland  of  our  youth  they  bore 

Verse,  like  an  ichor  in  a  chrysolite, 

Secret  yet  splendid,  and  the  world  forswore, 
One  breathing  space,  the  mocking  mask  it  wore. 

Then  failed,  then  fell  those  children  of  the  vine  — 

Sons  of  the  sun  —  and  sank  in  slow  decline ; 
Pulse  after  pulse  their  radiant  lives  were  shed. 

Envoy 

Prince-jeweler,  whose  facet  rimes  combine 
All  hues  that  glow,  all  rays  that  shift  and  shine, 

Farewell !  thy  song  is  sung,  thy  splendor  fled  I 
No  bards  to  Aganippe's  wave  incline  ; 

The  last  is  gone,  since  Banville  too  is  dead. 

It  is  also  the  ten-line  variation  which  Swinburne 
preferred  for  his  buoyant  and  overwhelming  "  Ballade 
of  Swimming,"  with  its  large  long  lines  of  anapestic 
heptameter :  — 

The  sea  is  awake,  and  the  sound  of  the  song  of  the  joy  of  her 

waking  is  rolled 
From  afar  to  the  star  that  recedes  from  anear  to  the  wastes  of 

the  wild  wide  shore. 


OTHER  FIXED  FORMS  165 

Her  call  is  a  trumpet  compelling  us  homeward  :  if  dawn  in  her 

east  be  acold, 
From  the  sea  shall  we  crave  not  her  grace  to  rekindle  the  life 

that  it  kindled  before 
Her  breath  to  requicken,  her  bosom  to  rock  us,  her  kisses  to  blesa 

as  of  yore  ? 
For  the  wind,  with  his  wings  half  open,  at  pause  in  the  sky, 

neither  fettered  nor  free, 
Leans  wave  ward  and  flutters  the  ripple  of  laughter  ;  and  fain 

would  the  twain  of  us  be 
Where  lightly  the  wave  yearns  forward  from  under  the  curve 

of  the  deep  dawn's  dome, 
And  full  of  the  morning  and  fired  with  the  pride  of  the  glory 

thereof  and  the  glee, 
Strike  out  from  the  shore  as  the  heart  in  us  bids  and  beseeches, 

athirst  for  the  foam. 

Life  holds  not  an  hour  that  is  better  to  live  in  :  the  past  is  a  tale 

that  is  told, 
The  future  a  sun-flecked  shadow,  alive  and  asleep,  with  a  bless- 

ing  in  store. 
As  we  give  us  again  to  the  waters,  the  rapture  of  limbs  that  the 

waters  enfold 
Is  less  than  the  rapture  of  spirit  whereby,  though  the  burden  it 

quits  were  sore, 
Our  souls  and  the  bodies  they  wield  at  their  will  are  absorbed  in 

the  life  they  adore  — 
In  the  life  that  endures  no  burden,  and  bows  not  the  forehead, 

and  bends  not  the  knee  — 
In  the  life  everlasting  of  earth  and  of  heaven,  in  the  laws  that 

atone  and  agree. 
In  the  measureless  music  of  things,  in  the  fervor  of  forces  that 

rest  or  that  roam, 
That  cross  and  return  and  reissue,  as  I  after  you  and  as  you  after 

me 
Strike  out  from  the  shore  as  the  heart  in  us  bids  and  beseeches, 

athirst  for  the  foam. 

For,  albeit  he  were  less  than  the  least  of  them,  haply  the  heart 

of  a  man  may  be  bold 
To  rejoice  in  the  word  of  the  sea  as  a  mother's  that  saith  to  the 

son  she  bore, 


166  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Child,  was  not  the  life  in  thee  mine,  and  my  spirit  the  breath  in 

thy  lips  from  of  old  ? 

Have  I  let  not  thy  weakness  exult  in  my  strength,  and  thy  fool- 
ishness learn  of  my  lore  ? 
Have  I  helped  not  or  healed  not  thine  anguish,  or  made  not  the 

might  of  thy  gladness  more  ? 
And  surely  his  heart  should  answer,  The  light  of  the  love  of  my 

life  is  in  thee. 
She  is  fairer  than  earth,  and  the  sun  is  not  fairer,  the  wind  is  not 

blither  than  she  : 
From  my  youth  bath  she  shown  me  the  joy  of  her  bays  that  I 

crossed,  of  her  cliffs  that  I  clomb, 
Till  now  that  the  twain  of  us  here,  in  desire  of  the  dawn  and  in 

trust  of  the  sea, 
Strike  out  from  the  shore  as  the  heart  in  us  bids  and  beseeches, 

athirst  for  the  foam. 

Envoy 
Friend,  earth  is  a  harbor  of  refuge  for  winter,  a  covert  where- 

under  to  flee 
When  day  is  the  vassal  of  night,  and  the  strength  of  the  hosts  of 

her  mightier  than  he  ; 
But  here  is  the  presence  adored  of  me,  here  my  desire  is  at  rest 

and  at  home. 
There  are  cliffs  to  be  climbed  upon  land,  there  are  ways  to  be 

trodden  and  ridden  :  but  we 
Strike  out  from  the  shore  as  the  heart  in  us  bids  and  beseeches, 

athirst  for  the  foam. 

In  this  resonant  lyric,  the  lines  sweep  forward  and 
swing  backward  like  the  sounding  surges  of  the  surf, 
billow  after  billow,  breaker  following  breaker,  tum- 
bling ahead  till  they  crash  at  last  on  the  shore.  Yet 
the  line  is  so  long-drawn  and  so  loud-sounding  that  the 
ear  is  only  doubtfully  conscious  of  the  structure  of  the 
ballade.  Indeed,  while  this  lyric  of  Swinburne  is  proof 
positive  that  the  ballade  can  obey  the  poet's  behest  for 
amplitude  of  treatment  and  for  elevation  of  tone,  yet 
it  is  not  really  characteristic  of  what  is  best  in  the  form. 


OTHER  FIXED  FORMS  167 

So  far  as  its  form  is  concerned  every  ballade  must  be 
arbitrary  and  artificial ;  and  therein  lies  not  a  little  of 
its  fascination.  It  could  stretch  itself  out  at  Swinburne's 
bidding ;  but  it  needed  to  make  no  effort  when  Dobson 
called  on  it  for  hidden  tenderness  of  sentiment  touched 
with  a  hint  of  humor. 

The  soul  of  the  ballade  is  its  refrain ;  each  of  the 
three  octaves  and  the  final  quatrain  lead  up  to  this 
recurring  line,  elucidating  it  and  justifying  it.  The 
refrain  must  be  aptly  chosen  and  adroitly  handled, 
so  that,  as  Dobson  himself  declared,  it  will  "  recur 
without  the  tedium  of  importunity  and  return  with 
the  certainty  of  welcome."  Especially  significant  are 
the  two  contrasted  refrains  in  the  ballade  a  double 
refrain,  wherein  the  fourth  line  of  the  first  octave  re- 
appears unchanged  in  every  octave,  and  wherein  the 
envoy  consists  of  two  couplets,  the  final  line  of  the 
first  couplet  being  the  internal  refrain  and  the  final 
line  of  the  second  couplet  being  the  external  refrain. 
Here  there  are  two  refrains  for  the  poet  to  provide  and 
to  set  over  against  each  other  in  rhythmical  antithesis. 
And  again  we  find  a  perfect  example  prepared  for  us 
by  Austin  Dobson  in  "The  Ballade  of  Prose  and 
Rime":  — 

When  the  ways  are  heavy  with  mire  and  rut, 

In  November  fogs,  in  December  snows, 
When  the  North  Wind  howls,  and  the  doors  are  shut, 

There  is  place  and  enough  for  the  pains  of  prose  ;  — 

But  whenever  a  scent  from  the  whitethorn  blows, 
And  the  jasmine-stars  to  the  casement  climb, 

And  a  Rosalind-face  at  the  lattice  shows, 
Then  hey  !  —  for  the  ripple  of  laughing  rime  ! 

When  the  brain  gets  dry  as  an  empty  nut, 
When  the  reason  stands  on  its  squarest  toes, 


168  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

When  the  mind  (like  a  beard)  has  a  "  formal  cut," 
There  is  place  and  enough  for  the  pains  of  prose  ;  — 
But  whenever  the  May-blood  stirs  and  glows, 

And  the  young  year  draws  to  the  "  golden  prime,"  — 
And  Sir  Romeo  sticks  in  his  ear  a  rose, 

Then  hey  !  —  for  the  ripple  of  laughing  rime  ! 

In  a  theme  where  the  thoughts  have  a  pedant-strut, 
In  a  changing  quarrel  of  "  Ayes  "  and  "  Noes," 

In  a  starched  procession  of  "  If  "  and  "  But," 

There  is  place  and  enough  for  the  pains  of  prose  :— 
But  whenever  a  soft  glance  softer  grows, 

And  the  light  hours  dance  to  the  trysting-time, 
And  the  secret  is  told  "  that  no  one  knows," 

Then  hey  !  —  for  the  ripple  of  laughing  rime  ! 

Envoy 

In  the  work-a-day  world,  —  for  its  needs  and  woes, 
There  is  place  and  enough  for  the  pains  of  prose  ; 
But  whenever  the  May-bells  clash  and  chime, 
Then  hey  !  —  for  the  ripple  of  laughing  rime  I 

Here  we  have  the  finest  flower  of  the  artificial  lyric, 
in  which  the  very  artificiality  is  made  to  accentuate 
our  pleasure,  as  the  laughing  rime  ripples  in  our 
ears.  In  this  ballade  we  find  the  crispness  of  rhythm, 
the  apparent  spontaneity,  the  unfailing  felicity  of 
phrase,  which  we  demand  in  what  Cowper  chose  to 
call  "  familiar  verse  "  and  which  is  more  often  known 
by  the  wholly  inadequate  and  unsatisfactory  French 
term  vers  de  societe.1 

1  In  almost  every  department  of  familiar  verse,  Austin  Dobson  ha* 
proved  himself  a  master ;  and  he  had  a  right,  therefore,  to  declare  its 
code  in  the  Twelve  Good  Rules  that  he  drew  up  many  years  ago  for 
the  guidance  of  all  who  shall  adventure  themselves  in  this  sort  of 
verse  :  — 

1.  Never  be  vulgar.  2.  Avoid  alang  and  puns.  3.  Avoid  inver- 
sions. 4.  Be  sparing  of  long  words.  5.  Be  colloquial  but  not  com- 
monplace. 6.  Choose  the  lightest  and  brightest  of  measures.  7.  Lot 


OTHER  FIXED  FORMS  169 

The  ballade  and  the  rondeau  are  best  fitted  for 
familiar  verse,  no  doubt,  and  their  obvious  artifice 
may  prevent  their  use  in  the  highest  reaches  of  poesy, 
where  the  lyrist  must  forego  as  many  shackles  as  he 
may.  Yet  they  need  not  be  restricted  to  the  field  of 
vers  de  societe  alone.  They  may  lack  the  sharp  con- 
cision of  the  quatrain  and  the  soaring  elevation  of  the 
sonnet ;  but  their  range  is  wider  than  the  drawing- 
room  lyric  only.  The  ballade  especially  has  an  indis- 
putable variety ;  and  in  the  hands  of  a  true  poet  its 
arbitrary  rime-scheme  and  its  foreordained  twenty- 
eight  lines  are  not  unduly  cramping  to  the  liberty  of 
the  lyrist.  If  evidence  must  be  adduced  in  behalf  of 
this  contention,  here  is  Swinburne's  haunting  "  Bal- 
lade of  Dreamland  "  :  — 

I  hid  my  heart  in  a  nest  of  roses, 

Out  of  the  sun's  way,  hidden  apart ; 
In  a  softer  bed  than  the  soft  white  snow  is, 

Under  the  rose  I  hid  my  heart. 

Why  would  it  sleep  not  ?  why  should  it  start, 
When  never  a  leaf  of  the  rose-tree  stirred  ? 

What  made  sleep  flutter  his  wings  and  part  ? 
Only  the  song  of  a  secret  bird. 

Lie  still,  I  said,  for  the  wind's  wing  closes, 

And  mild  leaves  muffle  the  keen  sun's  dart; 
Lie  still,  for  the  wind  on  the  warm  sea  dozes, 

And  the  wind  is  unquieter  yet  than  thou  art. 

Does  a  thought  in  thee  still  as  a  thorn's  wound  smart? 
Does  the  fang  still  fret  thee  of  hope  deferred  ? 

What  bids  the  lips  of  thy  sleep  dispart  ? 
Only  the  song  of  a  secret  bird. 

the  rimes  be  frequent  but  not  forced.  8.  Let  them  be  rigorously 
exact  to  the  ear.  9.  Be  as  -witty  as  you  like.  10.  Be  gerious  by  ac- 
cident. 11.  Be  pathetic  with  the  greatest  discretion.  12.  Never  a»k 
if  the  writer  of  these  rules  has  observed  them  himself. 


170  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

The  green  land's  name  that  a  charm  encloses 

It  never  was  writ  in  the  traveler's  chart, 
And  sweet  on  its  trees  as  the  fruit  that  grows  is, 

It  never  was  sold  in  the  merchant's  mart. 

The  swallows  of  dreams  through  its  dim  fields  dart. 
And  sleep's  are  the  tunes  in  its  tree-tops  heard  ; 

No  hound's  note  wakens  the  wildwood  hart, 
Only  the  song  of  a  secret  bird. 

Envoi 
In  the  world  of  dreams  I  have  chosen  my  part, 

To  sleep  for  a  season  and  hear  no  word 
Of  true  love's  truth  or  of  light  love's  art, 

Only  the  song  of  a  secret  bird. 

Perhaps  the  best  plea  that  has  been  made  for  the 
ballade  is  to  be  found  in  one  of  the  brilliant  essays  of 
M.  Jules  Lemaitre,  which  Mr.  Andrew  Lang  has  ren- 
dered into  English :  "  The  poet  who  begins  a  ballade 
does  not  know  very  exactly  what  he  will  put  into  it. 
The  rime,  and  nothing  but  the  rime,  will  whisper  things 
unexpected  and  charming,  things  he  would  never  have 
thought  of  but  for  her,  things  with  strange  and  re- 
mote relations  to  each  other,  all  united  in  the  disorder 
of  a  dream.  Nothing,  indeed,  is  richer  in  suggestion 
than  the  strict  laws  of  these  difficult  pieces  ;  they  force 
the  fancy  to  wander  afield,  hunting  high  and  low ;  and 
while  she  seeks  through  all  the  world  the  foot  that 
can  wear  Cinderella's  slipper,  she  makes  delightful 
discoveries  by  the  way." 

There  is  an  amplified  form  of  the  ballade  which  is 
called  the  chant-royal.  It  consists  of  five  eleven-line 
stanzas,  riming  a,  6,  a,  6,  c,  c,  d,  d,  e,  <?,  e,  with  a 
five-line  envoy,  riming  c?,  d,  e>  d,  e,  every  stanza  and 
the  envoy  ending  with  the  refrain.  Here  is  John 
Payne's  "  God  of  Love  " :  — 


OTHER  FIXED  FORMS  171 

0  most  fair  God,  O  Love  both  new  and  old, 
That  wast  before  the  flowers  of  morning  blew, 

Before  the  glad  sun  in  his  mail  of  gold 

Leapt  into  light  across  the  first  day's  dew; 
Thou  art  the  first  and  last  of  our  delight, 
That  in  the  blue  day  and  the  purple  night 

Holdest  the  hearts  of  servant  and  of  king, 

Lord  of  liesse,  sovran  of  sorrowing, 
That  in  thy  hand  hast  heaven's  golden  key 

And  Hell  beneath  the  shadow  of  thy  wing, 
Thou  art  my  Lord  to  whom  I  bend  the  knee. 

What  thing  rejects  thy  mastery  ?  Who  so  bold 
But  at  thine  altars  in  the  dusk  they  sue  ? 

Even  the  strait  pale  goddess,  silver-stoled, 

That  kissed  Endymion  when  the  Spring  was  new, 

To  thee  did  homage  in  her  own  despite, 

When  in  the  shadow  of  her  wings  of  white 

She  slid  down  trembling  from  her  mooned  ring 
To  where  the  Latmian  boy  lay  slumbering, 

And  in  that  kiss  put  off  cold  chastity. 

Who  but  acclaim  with  voice  and  pipe  and  string, 
u  Thou  art  my  Lord  to  whom  I  bend  the  knee  ?  " 

Master  of  men  and  gods,  in  every  fold 

Of  thy  wide  vans  the  sorceries  that  renew 
The  laboring  earth,  tranced  with  the  winter's  cold, 

Lie  hid  —  the  quintessential  charms  that  woo 
The  souls  of  flowers,  slain  with  the  sullen  might 
Of  the  dead  year,  and  draw  them  to  the  light. 

Balsam  and  blessing  to  thy  garments  cling; 

Skyward  and  seaward,  when  thy  white  hands  fling 
Their  spells  of  healing  over  land  and  sea, 

One  shout  of  homage  makes  the  welkin  ring, 
"  Thou  art  my  Lord  to  whom  I  bend  the  knee  I " 

1  see  thee  throned  aloft;  thy  fair  hands  hold 
Myrtles  for  joy,  and  euphrasy  and  rue: 

Laurels  and  roses  round  thy  white  brows  rolled, 

And  in  thine  eyes  the  royal  heaven's  hue: 
But  in  thy  lips'  clear  color,  ruddy  bright, 
The  heart's  blood  shines  of  many  a  hapless  wight. 


172  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Thou  art  not  only  fair  and  sweet  as  spring  ; 

Terror  and  beauty,  fear  and  wondering 
Meet  on  thy  brow,  amazing  all  that  see : 

All  men  do  praise  thee,  ay,  and  everything; 
Thou  art  my  Lord  to  whom  I  bend  the  knee. 

I  fear  thee,  though  I  love.  Who  can  behold 
The  sheer  gun  burning  in  the  orbed  blue, 

What  while  the  noontide  over  hill  and  wold 
Flames  like  a  fire,  except  his  mazed  view 

Wither  and  tremble  ?  So  thy  splendid  sight 

Fills  me  with  mingled  gladness  and  affright. 
Thy  visage  haunts  me  in  the  wavering 
Of  dreams,  and  in  the  dawn  awakening, 

I  feel  thy  radiance  streaming  full  on  me, 
Both  fear  and  joy  unto  thy  feet  I  bring  ; 

Thou  art  my  Lord  to  whom  I  bend  the  knee  ! 

Envoy 

God  above  Gods,  High  and  Eternal  King, 
To  whom  the  spheral  symphonies  do  sing, 

I  find  no  whither  from  thy  power  to  flee, 
Save  in  thy  pinions'  vast  o'ershadowing, 

Thou  art  my  Lord  to  whom  I  bend  the  knee. 

This  has  a  lyric  largeness ;  and  yet  the  chant-royal 
lies  peculiarly  open  to  the  objection  which  Professor 
Lounsbury  has  urged  against  all  fixed  forms  of  verse, 
to  the  effect  that  "  it  is  poetry  not  of  art,  but  of  arti- 
fice, though  often  artifice  in  a  very  high  sense.  Work 
of  this  kind  is  usually  produced  by  men  who  are  artists, 
and  sometimes  great  artists,  in  poetry,  as  distinguished 
from  great  poets.  It  is  accordingly  not  so  much  what 
they  say  that  interests  us  as  the  way  in  which  they  say 
it."  It  is  true  that  this  objection  must  also  hold,  to  a 
certain  extent,  even  against  the  sonnet.  In  every  art  dif- 
ficulty conquered  affords  an  abiding  source  of  pleasure  ; 
and  although  this  is  admitted  ungrudgingly,  there  is 


OTHER  FIXED  FORMS  173 

conviction  also  in  Lowell's  assertion  that  "  difficulty 
without  success  is  perhaps  the  least  tolerable  kind  of 
writing."  As  Theodore  de  Banville  was  frank  in  de- 
claring, "without  poetic  vision  all  is  mere  marquetry 
and  cabinet-maker's  work ;  that  is,  so  far  as  poetry 
is  concerned  —  nothing." 

The  case  for  the  fixed  form  was  never  better  put  than 
by  Edmund  Gosse  in  his  "  Plea  for  Certain  Exotic 
Forms  of  Verse,"  written  when  these  imported  types 
were  just  reappearing  in  our  language.  "  But  there  is 
always  the  danger  of  using  elaborate  and  beautiful 
measures  to  conceal  poverty  of  thought,  and  my  plea 
would  be  incomplete  if  I  left  this  objection  to  it  un- 
stated. The  only  excuse  for  writing  rondeaux  and 
villanelles  is  the  production  of  poems  that  are  charm- 
ing to  a  reader  who  takes  no  note  of  their  elaborate 
form ;  they  should  be  attractive  in  spite  of,  and  not 
because  of,  their  difficulty.  The  true  test  of  success  is 
that  the  poem  should  give  the  reader  an  impression 
of  spontaneity  and  ease,  and  that  the  attention  should 
be  attracted  by  the  wit,  or  fancy,  or  pathos,  in  the 
thoughts  and  expression,  and  not,  until  later  study, 
by  the  form  at  all.  Let  it  not,  however,  be  for  this 
reason  imagined  that  the  labor  is  thankless  and  the 
elaboration  needless.  Half  the  pleasure  given  to  the 
reader,  half  the  sense  of  richness,  completeness,  and 
grace  which  he  vaguely  perceives  and  unconsciously 
enjoys,  is  due  to  the  labor  the  poet  has  expended." 

One  more  exotic  form  remains  to  be  considered,  not 
French  this  time,  but  Malayan.  This  is  the  pantoum, 
imported  but  not  important,  which  Victor  Hugo  called 
to  the  attention  of  Gautier  and  Banville.  It  is  not  an 
attractive  form,  and  its  resources  are  scanty.  It  con- 


174  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

sists  of  a  succession  of  quatrains,  the  second  and  fourth 
lines  of  the  first  quatrain  being  repeated  as  the  first 
and  third  of  the  second  quatrain,  and  the  second  and 
fourth  lines  of  this  second  quatrain  serving  again  as 
the  first  and  third  of  the  third  quatrain ;  and  so  on,  the 
final  quatrain  picking  up  again  the  first  and  third 
lines  of  the  first.  Monotony  is  inevitable,  and  any 
ample  treatment  of  a  theme  is  impossible.  With  his 
customary  tact,  Austin  Dobson  seized  on  this  mono- 
tony as  the  excuse  for  the  lyric  he  prepared  in  this 
form,  thereby  forcing  the  incessant  repetition  to  sub- 
serve the  general  effect  of  insistently  recurrent  lines. 
He  called  his  pantoum,  the  first  to  be  attempted  in 
English,  "  In  Town  " :  — 

Toiling  in  town  now  is  "  horrid  " 

(There  is  that  woman  again  !)  — • 
June  in  the  zenith  is  torrid, 

Thought  gets  dry  in  the  brain. 

There  is  that  woman  again: 

"  Strawberries!  fourpence  a  pottle!  '* 

Thought  gets  dry  in  the  brain; 
Ink  gets  dry  in  the  bottle. 

"Strawberries!  fourpence  a  pottle  !" 

0  for  the  green  of  a  lane  !  — 
Ink  gets  dry  in  the  bottle; 

"  Buzz  "  goes  a  fly  in  the  pane  i 

O  for  the  green  of  a  lane, 

Where  one  might  lie  and  be  lazy  I 
"Buzz"  goes  a  fly  in  the  pane; 
Bluebottles  drive  me  crazy  ! 

Where  one  might  lie  and  be  lazy, 

Careless  of  town  and  all  in  it !  — 
Bluebottles  drive  me  crazy: 

1  shall  go  mad  in  a  minute  ! 


OTHER   FIXED    FORMS  175 

Careless  of  town  and  all  in  it, 

With  some  one  to  soothe  and  to  still  you; 
I  shall  go  mad  in  a  minute; 

Bluebottle,  then  I  shall  kill  you ! 

With  some  one  to  soothe  and  to  still  you, 

As  only  one's  feminine  kin  do,  — 
Bluebottle,  then  I  shall  kill  you: 

There  now  1  I  've  broken  the  window ! 

As  only  one's  feminine  kin  do,  — 
Some  muslin-clad  Mabel  or  May  !  — 

There  now  !  I  've  broken  the  window  ! 
Bluebottle  *s  off  and  away  I 

Some  muslin-clad  Mabel  or  May, 

To  dash  one  with  eau  de  Cologne: 
Bluebottle 's  off  and  away, 

And  why  should  I  stay  here  aloue  ? 

To  dash  one  with  eau  de  Cologne, 

All  over  one's  eminent  forehead ;  — 
And  why  should  I  stay  here  alone  ! 

Toiling  in  town  now  is  "  horrid." 


CHAPTER  IX 

RIMELESS    STANZAS 

Rime,  the  rack  of  finest  wits, 
That  expresseth  but  by  fits 

True  conceit, 

Spoiling  senses  of  their  treasure, 
Cozening  judgment  with  a  measure, 

But  false  weight ; 

Wresting  words  from  their  true  calling, 
Propping  verse  for  fear  of  falling 

To  the  ground, 

Jointing  syllables,  drowning  letters, 
Fastening  vowels,  as  with  fetters 

They  were  bound. 

Greek  was  free  from  rime's  infection, 
Happy  Greek  by  this  protection 

Was  not  spoiled, 

Whilst  the  Latin,  queen  of  tongues, 
Is  not  yet  free  from  rime's  wrongs, 

But  rests  foiled. 
BEN  JONSON  :  A  Fit  of  Rime  against  Rime. 

IN  the  various  types  of  stanza  which  have  been  con- 
sidered, in  the  sonnet  and  in  the  other  fixed  forms, 
rime  serves  to  indicate  the  metrical  scheme  which 
the  ear  is  to  expect.  Now  and  again,  one  line  or 
another  in  the  quatrain,  or  in  a  longer  stanza,  may  be 
left  unmated  ;  and  often  a  refrain  is  rimeless.  Yet  the 
importance  of  rime  is  indisputable ;  indeed  one  might 
declare  that  its  necessity  is  almost  undeniable.  At 
least,  this  much  must  be  admitted  —  that  in  our  mod- 
ern English  the  stanza,  whatsoever  its  length,  seems  to 
insist  upon  its  sequence  of  terminal  rimes,  and  that 


RIMELESS  STANZAS  177 

in  consequence  of  this  apparent  insistence  very  few 
lyrics  have  been  able  to  sing  themselves  into  the 
memory  and  to  capture  a  popularity  which  is  at  once 
wide  and  enduring,  unless  they  have  soared  aloft  on 
the  wings  of  rime. 

In  the  epic  and  in  the  drama,  poetry  can  get  along 
very  well  without  the  tinkle  of  the  terminal  syllables ; 
in  fact,  English  poetry  of  this  lofty  species  seems  to 
reject  rime,  as  needless  and  even  enfeebling.  But  in 
lyrical  poetry,  whether  it  is  confined  in  a  single  stanza 
or  extended  to  a  sequence  of  stanzas,  rime  appears 
to  be  almost  obligatory.  George  Meredith  went  so  far 
as  to  insist  that  "  in  lyrics  the  demand  for  music  is 
imperative,  and,  as  quantity  is  denied  to  the  English 
tongue,  rimes  there  must  be."  If  rime  is  absent, 
our  ears  are  deprived  of  a  delight  which  they  have 
learned  to  anticipate.  Rime  supplies  to  the  stanza  its 
architectural  outline  ;  and  it  is  the  steel-frame  for  the 
firm  construction  of  the  towering  ode.  If  the  rime 
is  lacking,  our  ears  miss  it  and  they  have  to  strain  to 
make  sure  of  the  stanzaic  form.  This  may  be  due 
merely  to  long  traditions  in  English  verse ;  or  more 
probably  it  may  be  ascribed  to  some  unexplored  pe- 
culiarity of  our  modern  languages.  Certainly  the  lack 
of  rime  does  not  interfere  with  the  charm  of  the  lyrics 
of  the  Greeks,  of  the  Latins,  and  of  the  Hebrews. 
The  French,  it  may  be  noted,  are  even  more  dependent 
upon  rime  than  we  are ;  they  have  never  been  able 
to  develop  blank  verse ;  and  both  their  epic  and  their 
tragic  poetry  gladly  wears  the  fetters  of  the  riming 
couplet,  made  even  more  galling  by  the  rule  that  a 
pair  of  masculine  rimes  shall  always  alternate  with  a 
pair  of  feminine  rimes. 


178  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Yet  many  poets  have  composed  English  lyrics  in 
rimeless  stanzas  of  varying  length ;  and  not  a  few 
of  them  have  produced  poems  of  unquestionable  grace 
and  beauty.  Nevertheless,  the  fact  remains  that  scarcely 
any  poet  of  our  language  has  achieved  one  of  his  major 
successes  with  an  unrimed  lyric ;  and  it  is  always 
upon  his  lyrics  adorned  with  chiming  ends  that  his 
reputation  rests.  In  English  the  rimeless  lyric  is 
sporadic  and  abnormal;  and  yet  these  experiments 
in  stanzas  without  rime  are  significant  and  interest- 
ing. 

If  we  limit  the  word  couplet,  as  perhaps  we  should, 
to  describe  a  pair  of  lines  which  rime  together,  we 
have  the  word  distich  to  describe  a  pair  of  unrimed 
lines.  For  inscriptions,  for  memorial  purposes,  the 
distich  has  a  proved  fitness.  In  so  brief  a  lyric  the 
necessity  for  rime  is  less  obvious.  Here  is  a  distich 
of  Emerson's :  — 

This  passing  moment  is  an  edifice 
Which  the  Omnipotent  cannot  rebuild. 

Here  are  three  lines  of  Landor's  on  Shakspere :  — 

In  poetry  there  is  but  one  supreme, 

Though  there  are  many  angels  round  his  throne, 

Mighty,  and  beauteous,  while  his  face  is  hid. 

There  is  a  lapidary  concision  like  that  of  an  Attic 
inscription  in  these  three  lines  of  Emerson's :  — 

No  fate,  save  by  the  victim's  fault,  is  low, 
For  God  hath  writ  all  dooms  magnificent, 
So  guilt  not  traverses  His  tender  will. 

The  unrimed  quatrain  is  infrequent  in  English 
verse;  and  yet  a  few  stately  specimens  are  available. 
Here  is  one  from  Emerson :  — 


RIMELESS  STANZAS  179 

There  is  a  time  when  the  romance  of  life 
Should  be  shut  up,  and  closed  with  double  clasp: 
Better  that  this  be  done  before  the  dust 
That  none  cau  blow  away  falls  into  it. 

In  these  little  lyrics,  the  ear  has  scarce  time  to 
awaken  to  the  expectancy  of  rime  before  the  poem 
comes  to  its  end.  But  when  the  lyric  consists  of  several 
stanzas  the  absence  of  the  rime  is  soon  noted ;  and 
although  this  may  be  forgiven,  still  it  is  likely  to  be 
more  or  less  disconcerting,  especially  if  the  stanza 
chosen  is  familiar,  as  in  this  "  Etching  "  of  Henley's :  — 

Two  and  thirty  is  the  plowman  ; 
He  's  a  man  of  gallant  inches, 
And  his  hair  is  close  and  curly, 

And  his  beard  ; 

But  his  face  is  wan  and  sunken, 
And  his  eyes  are  large  and  brilliant, 
And  his  shoulder  blades  are  sharp, 

And  his  knees. 

This  stanza  seems  to  cry  aloud  for  its  customary 
rimes  ;  and  there  is  a  wanton  bravado  in  depriving 
us  of  them.  The  unrimed  lyric  is  more  acceptable 
when  it  avoids  the  well-known  stanzaic  forms  wherein 
rime  is  traditional  and  when  it  employs  a  less  rigid 
frame,  freer  in  its  movement.  This  Longfellow  felt 
with  his  intuitive  feeling  for  felicity  of  presentation. 
Here  are  the  opening  quatrains  of  his  greeting  "  To 
an  Old  Danish  Song-Book  "  :  — 

Welcome,  my  old  friend, 
Welcome  to  a  foreign  fireside, 
While  the  sullen  gales  of  autumn 
Shake  the  windows. 

The  ungrateful  world 

Has,  it  seems,  dealt  harshly  with  thee, 


180  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Since,  beneath  the  skies  of  Denmark, 
First  I  met  thee. 

This  is  excellent  in  its  mating  of  style  and  sub- 
stance. These  unrimed  quatrains  justify  themselves ; 
they  do  not  demand  rime ;  they  would  not  be  bettered 
by  it.  There  is  an  even  bolder  irregularity  in  the  open- 
ing of  "  The  Saga  of  King  Olaf  " :  — 

I  am  the  God  Thor, 
I  am  the  War  God, 
I  am  the  Thunderer  ! 
Here  in  my  Northland, 
My  fastness  and  fortress, 
Reign  I  forever ! 

Here  amid  icebergs 
Rule  I  the  nations  ; 
This  is  my  hammer, 
Miolner  the  mighty  ; 
Giants  and  sorcerers 
Cannot  withstand  it ! 

Longfellow  had  an  easy  mastery  of  rime  when  he 
chose  to  exert  it,  yet  he  liked  to  forego  its  aid  and  to 
lift  up  a  lyric  without  the  assistance  of  the  expected 
pairs  of  terminal  words.  His  song  on  "  The  Bells  of 
Lynn "  is  written  in  distichs,  with  a  refrain  at  the 
end  of  every  second  line :  — 

O  curfew  of  the  setting  sun  !  O  Bells  of  Lynn  I 
O  requiem  of  the  dying  day  1  O  Bells  of  Lynn  ! 

From  the  dark  belfries  of  yon  cloud-cathedral  wafted, 
Your  sounds  aerial  seem  to  float,  O  Bells  of  Lynn. 

Borne  on  the  evening  wind  across  the  crimson  twilight, 
O'er  land  and  sea  they  rise  and  fall,  O  Bells  of  Lynn  I 

In  this  lyric  the  stave  is  only  two  lines  long  and 
the  expectancy  of  rime  is  met  by  the  recurring  re- 


RIMELESS  STANZAS  181 

f rain.  It  is  by  the  aid  of  a  refrain  also  that  Charles 
Lamb  ties  together  his  sequence  of  three-line  stanzas:  — 

All,  all  are  gone,  the  old  familiar  faces. 

I  have  had  playmates,  I  have  had  companions, 
In  my  days  of  childhood,  in  my  joyful  school-days, 
All,  all  are  gone,  the  old  familiar  faces. 

I  loved  a  love  once,  fairest  among  women; 
Closed  are  her  doors  on  me,  I  must  not  see  her; 
All,  all  are  gone,  the  old  familiar  faces. 

Tennyson  succeeded  in  giving  lightness  and  fluidity 
to  an  unrimed  lyric  arranged  in  stanzas  of  three 
lines  each,  which  is  supposed  to  be  sung  in  "  The  Prin- 
cess " :  — 

O  Swallow,  Swallow,  flying,  flying  south! 
Fly  to  her,  and  fall  upon  her  gilded  eaves, 
And  tell  her,  tell  her,  what  I  tell  to  tbee. 

O  tell  her,  Swallow,  that  thou  knowest  each, 
That  bright  and  fierce  and  fickle  is  the  South, 
And  dark  and  true  and  tender  is  the  North. 

And  in  "  Tears,  Idle  Tears,"  one  of  his  loveliest 
lyrics,  Tennyson  again  abandoned  rime,  but  clung 
to  the  refrain  as  marking  usefully  the  limit  of  tW 
stanza :  — 

Tears,  idle  tears,  I  know  not  what  they  mean, 
Tears  from  the  depth  of  some  divine  despair 
Rise  in  the  heart,  and  gather  to  the  eyes, 
In  looking  on  the  happy  autumn-fields, 
And  thinking  of  the  days  that  are  no  more. 

Fresh  as  the  first  beam  glittering  on  a  sail, 
That  brings  our  friends  up  from  the  underworld, 
Sad  as  the  last  which  reddens  over  one 
That  sinks  with  all  we  love  below  the  verge  ; 
So  sad,  so  fresh,  the  days  that  are  no  more. 


182  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Symonds  held  this  to  be  a  "  perfect  specimen  of  the 
most  melodious  and  complete  minstrelsy  in  words  " ; 
and  he  declared  that  the  refrain  with  its  "recurrence 
of  sound  and  meaning  is  a  substitute  for  rime  and 
suggests  rime  so  persuasively  that  it  is  impossible  to 
call  the  poern  mere  blank  verse." 

A  device  not  dissimilar  is  employed  in  a  lyric  by  an 
American  poet,  untimely  cut  off  in  his  youth,  Charles 
Henry  Liiders.  This  song  is  entitled  the  "Four 
Winds  "  1 :  and  it  must  be  given  in  full  to  show  clearly 
how  the  several  stanzas  are  kept  separate  and  distinct, 
clearly  perceptible  to  the  listening  ear,  without  the  aid 
of  the  rime:  — 

Wind  of  the  North, 

Wind  of  the  Northland  snows, 

Wind  of  the  winnowed  skies  and  sharp,  clear  stars,  — 

Blow  cold  and  keen  across  the  naked  hills, 

And  crisp  the  lowland  pools  with  crystal  films, 

And  blue  the  casement-squares  with  glittering  ice, 

But  go  not  near  my  love. 

Wind  of  the  West, 

Wind  of  the  few,  far  clouds, 

Wind  of  the  gold  and  crimson  sunset  lands,  — 

Blow  fresh  and  pure  across  the  peaks  and  plains, 

And  broaden  the  bine  spaces  of  the  heavens, 

And  sway  the  grasses  and  the  mountain  pines, 

But  let  my  dear  one  rest. 

Wind  of  the  East, 

Wind  of  the  sunrise  seas, 

Wind  of  the  clinging  mists  and  gray,  harsh  rains, — 

Blow  moist  and  chill  across  the  wastes  of  brine, 

And  shut  the  sun  out,  and  the  moon  and  stars, 

And  lash  the  boughs  against  the  dripping  eaves, 

Yet  keep  thou  from  my  love. 

1  By  permission  from    The    Dead  Nymph   and   other   Poems  by 
Charles  Henry  Liiders,  copyrighted,  1891,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


RIMELESS  STANZAS  183 

But  thou,  sweet  wind  ! 

Wind  of  the  fragrant  South, 

Wind  from  the  bowers  of  jasmine  and  of  rose,  — 

Over  magnolia  glooms  and  lilied  lakes 

And  flowering  forests  come  with  dewy  wings, 

And  stir  the  petals  at  her  feet  and  kiss 

The  low  mound  where  she  lies. 

Although  the  refrain  has  served  Lamb,  Longfellow, 
and  Tennyson  to  impress  the  form  of  an  unrimed 
stanza  upon  the  ear,  other  poets  have  done  without  its 
aid,  perhaps  because  they  did  not  feel  any  desire  to 
isolate  the  successive  units  of  construction.  Thus 
William  Watson  has  a  sequence  of  quatrains  in  "  Eng- 
land, My  Mother,"  linked  together  by  the  continuity 
of  the  thought  and  flowing  forward  without  any  sharp 
division  into  stanzas  :  — 

Lo,  with  ancient 
Roots  of  man's  nature 
Twines  the  eternal 
Passion  of  song. 

Ever  Love  fans  it,  — 
Ever  Life  feeds  it ; 
Time  cannot  age  it, 
Death  cannot  slay. 

Deep  in  the  world-heart 
Stand  its  foundations, 
Tangled  with  all  things, 
Twin-made  with  all. 

In  this  poem  of  Watson's  the  stanzas  are  of  uniform 
length  and  of  uniform  metrical  construction ;  but  they 
are  not  separate  unities.  The  stanza  is  not  insisted  on  ; 
it  is  not  integral  to  the  movement  of  the  ode-like  lyric. 
Still  less  does  our  ear  ask  for  rime  when  the  succes- 


184  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

sive  stanzas  are  not  of  uniform  length  or  of  uniform 
metrical  construction. 

In  Matthew  Arnold's  "  Strayed  Reveler,"  there  is  no 
rigorous  uniformity ;  indeed,  the  rhythmical  movement 
is  so  free  that  the  ear  adjusts  itself  at  once  to  this  free- 
dom and  has  to  make  no  effort  to  seize  any  prescribed 
metrical  scheme :  — 

The  Youth 

Who  speaks  ?  Ah,  who  comes  forth 

To  thy  side,  Goddess,  from  within? 

How  shall  I  name  him  ? 

This  spare,  dark-featured, 

Quick-eyed  stranger? 

Ah,  and  I  see  too 

His  sailor's  bonnet, 

His  short  coat,  travel-tarnished, 

With  one  arm  bare  !  — 

Art  thou  not  he,  whom  fame 

This  long  time  rumors 

The  favor'd  guest  of  Circe,  brought  by  the  waves, 

Art  thou  he,  stranger  ? 

The  wise  Ulysses, 

Laertes'  son  ? 

Ulysses 

I  am  Ulysses. 

And  tbou,  too,  sleeper  ? 

Thy  voice  is  sweet. 

It  may  be  thou  hast  follow'd 

Through  the  islands  some  divine  bard, 

By  age  taught  many  things, 

Age  and  the  Muses; 

And  heard  him  delighting 

The  Chiefs  and  the  people 

In  the  banquet,  and  learned  his  songs 

Of  Gods  and  Heroes, 

Of  war  and  arts, 

And  peopled  cities, 

Inland  or  built 

By  the  gray  sea.  If  so,  then  hail! 

I  honor  and  welcome  thee. 


RIMELESS  STANZAS  185 

Apparently  it  is  only  when  the  stanza  stands  out  by 
itself  that  our  ears  expect  the  rime  to  indicate  the 
metrical  framework ;  and  when  the  verse  flows  on 
avoiding  equal  subdivisions,  our  ears  accept  this  with- 
out being  in  any  way  strained.  Browning,  for  example, 
divides  "  One  Word  More,"  his  epistle  to  his  wife  at 
the  end  of  "  Men  and  Women,"  into  groups  of  lines, 
these  metrical  paragraphs  containing  sometimes  only 
three  or  four  lines  and  sometimes  extending  to  more 
than  twenty.  Thus  there  is  no  suggestion  of  any 
stanzaic  form,  and  therefore  there  is  no  need  for 
rime  or  refrain  or  for  any  other  device  to  guide  the 
ear.  Here  is  the  first  of  these  paragraphs,  limited  to 
four  lines  only :  — 

There  they  are,  my  fifty  men  and  women 
Naming  me  the  fifty  poems  finished  ! 
Take  them,  Love,  the  book  and  me  together; 
Where  the  heart  lies,  let  the  brain  lie  also. 

And  here  is  another  paragraph,  the  sixth,  having 
three  lines  only :  — 

You  and  I  would  rather  see  that  angel, 

Painted  by  the  tenderness  of  Dante, 

Would  we  not  ?  —  than  read  a  fresh  Inferno. 

Part  of  the  ease  and  lightness  of  this  poem  is  due 
to  its  trochaic  rhythm.  As  we  examine  the  most  satis- 
fying of  the  lyrics  in  our  language  which  are  not 
adorned  with  rime,  we  cannot  help  remarking  how 
strong  is  the  tendency  of  the  poets  to  end  their  lines 
with  short  syllables.  They  are  prone  either  to  employ 
a  trochaic  rhythm,  or  to  append  an  extra  short 
syllable  to  their  iambic  lines.  It  is  an  unrimed 
iambic  heptameter  with  this  added  short  syllable 
which  Newman  chose  for  his  translation  of  Homer. 


186  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

It  is  in  unrimed  dactylic  trimeter  that  Dr.  Weir 
Mitchell  composed  his  "  Psalm  of  the  Waters,"  carry- 
ing over  the  final  short  syllable  of  every  line  to  the 
beginning  of  the  next :  — 

So  this  is  a  psalm  of  the  waters,  — 
The  wavering,  wandering  waters: 
With  languages  learned  in  the  forest, 
With  secret  of  earth's  lonely  caverns, 
The  mystical  waters  go  by  me 
On  errands  of  love  and  of  beauty, 
On  embassies  friendly  and  gentle, 
With  shimmer  of  brown  and  of  silver. 

It  is  in  iambics,  chiefly  tetrameter  and  trimeter,  that 
Southey  wrote  his  "  Thalaba,"  adding  frequently  a 
short  syllable  at  the  end  of  his  line  :  — 

He  found  a  woman  in  the  cave, 

A  solitary  Woman 
Who  by  the  fire  was  spinning 

And  singing  as  she  spun. 
The  pine  boughs  were  cheerfully  blazing, 
And  her  face  was  bright  with  the  flame. 

In  the  very  year,  1855,  when  Browning  published 
"  One  Word  More,"  Longfellow  had  earlier  issued 
"  The  Song  of  Hiawatha  "  in  a  kindred  trochaic  rhythm. 
But  the  American  poet  took  over  from  the  Finnish 
"Kalevala"  (which  had  suggested  his  meter)  the 
device  of  frequent  repetition  of  the  same  thought  in 
slightly  varied  words.  This  device  gave  individuality 
to  his  lyrical  legend,  and  a  pervading  gracefulness 
almost  feminine  in  its  delicacy :  — 

Give  me  of  your  bark,  O  Birch-tree  ! 
Of  your  yellow  bark,  O  Birch-tree  I 
Growing  by  the  rushing  river, 
Tall  and  stately  in  the  valley  I 
I  a  light  canoe  will  build  me, 


RIMELESS  STANZAS  187 

Build  a  swift  Cheemaun  for  sailing, 
That  shall  float  upon  the  river, 
Like  a  yellow  leaf  in  Autumn, 
Like  a  yellow  water-lily  ! 

Two  other  of  Longfellow's  longer  poems  are  also 
without  the  assistance  which  rime  may  bestow. 
These  are  "  Evangeline "  and  "The  Courtship  of 
Miles  Standish."  They  are  written  in  what  may  be 
described  as  English  hexameters,  every  line  consisting 
of  five  dactyls,  followed  by  a  single  trochee,  which 
supplied  the  final  short  syllable  that  unrimed  verse 
appears  to  prefer.  The  choice  was  singularly  felici- 
tous, especially  for  "  Evangeline."  As  Dr.  Holmes 
declared,  "the  hexameter  has  been  often  criticized, 
but  I  do  not  believe  any  other  measure  could  have 
told  that  lovely  story  with  such  effect,  as  we  feel 
when  carried  along  the  tranquil  current  of  these 
brimming,  slow-moving,  soul-satisfying  lines.  Imagine, 
for  a  moment,  a  story  like  thia  minced  into  octosyl- 
lables. The  poet  knows  better  than  his  critics  the 
length  of  step  which  best  befits  his  muse."  The 
shrewdness  of  Dr.  Holmes's  opinion  is  shown  by  an 
experiment  tried  by  Longfellow  himself.  The  poet 
rewrote  one  of  the  most  beautiful  passages  of  "  Evan- 
geline," not  in  octosyllables,  but  in  riming  iambic 
pentameters.  The  matter  was  substantially  identical 
in  both  versions,  and  only  the  manner  was  different ; 
yet  not  a  little  of  the  charm  of  the  hexameter  original 
has  evaporated  in  the  rewriting  into  rimed  penta- 
meters. 

Then  from  a  neighboring  thicket  the  mocking-bird,  wildest  of 

singers, 

Swinging  aloft  on  a  willow  spray  that  hung  o'er  the  water, 
Shook  from  his  little  throat  such  floods  of  delirious  music, 


188  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

That  the  whole  air  and  the  woods  and  the  waves  seemed  silent 

to  listen. 
Plaintive   at   first   were   the  tones  and   sad :   then  soaring  to 

madness 
Seemed    they    to    follow    or    guide     the    revel    of    frenzied 

Bacchantes. 

Single  notes  were  then  heard,  in  sorrowful,  low  lamentation ; 
Till,  having  gathered  them  all,  he  flung  them  abroad  in  derision, 
As  when,  after  a  storm,  a  gust  of  wind  through  the  tree-tops 
Shakes  down   the   rattling  rain  in  a  crystal  shower  on  the 

branches. 

This  is  the  unrimed  hexameter  original ;  and  here  is 
the  rimed  pentameter  reworking :  — 

Upon  a  spray  that  overhung  the  stream 
The  mocking-bird,  awaking  from  his  dream, 
Poured  such  delirious  music  from  his  throat 
That  all  the  air  seemed  listening  to  his  note. 
Plaintive  at  first  the  song  began,  and  slow; 
It  breathed  of  sadness,  and  of  pain  and  wo; 
Then,  gathering  all  his  notes,  abroad  he  flung 
The  multitudinous  music  from  his  tongue,  — 
As,  after  showers,  a  sudden  gust  again 
Upon  the  leaves  shakes  down  the  rattling  rain. 

The  immediate  welcome  accorded  to  "  Evangeline  " 
and  to  its  successor  in  the  same  meter,  "  The  Courtship 
of  Miles  Standish,"  is  proof  that  the  English-speaking 
peoples  found  no  difficulty  in  accepting  this  dactylic 
hexameter  as  Longfellow  handled  it.  Almost  a  novelty 
in  English  versification,  it  was  received  at  once  as 
pleasing  to  our  ears.  As  Dr.  Holmes  noted,  it  met 
with  not  a  little  adverse  criticism,  mostly  from  those 
who  applied  a  false  test  and  who  blamed  Longfellow 
for  a  failure  to  accomplish  what  he  had  never  tried 
to  attempt.  The  dissatisfied  critics  complained  that 
these  English  hexameters  did  not  conform  exactly  to 
the  strict  rules  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  hexameter  and 


RIMELESS  STANZAS  189 

therefore  that  they  did  not  suggest  to  an  English  ear 
the  full  effect  made  by  the  classic  hexameter  on  the 
ears  of  the  Athenians  and  the  Romans.  But  nowhere 
did  Longfellow  claim  that  his  dactylic  hexameter  was 
the  equivalent  in  our  language  of  the  classic  hexameter 
which  depended  for  a  large  part  of  its  weight  and  of 
its  stately  march  on  the  terminal  spondee,  a  foot  which 
our  language  abhors.  What  Longfellow  did  was  to 
establish  an  English  hexameter,  which  the  English  ear 
was  glad  to  accept.  This  English  hexameter  was  un- 
doubtedly suggested  to  Longfellow  by  certain  attempts 
to  acclimatize  in  our  versification  the  classic  hexameter ; 
but  the  American  poet  was  too  accomplished  a  metrist 
to  have  supposed  that  he  could  carry  over  into  our 
accentual  language  the  specific  characteristics  of  any 
verse-form  developed  in  a  quantitative  language  like 
the  Greek. 

In  Greek  and  in  Latin  the  rhythm  is  the  result  of 
quantity,  that  is  to  say,  it  is  caused  by  the  alternation 
of  syllables  which  are  actually  long  or  actually  short 
in  the  duration  of  the  time  taken  to  pronounce  them. 
In  English,  rhythm  is  caused  to  some  slight  extent  by 
quantity,  but  more  often  by  accent,  by  stress,  by  the 
emphasis  with  which  we  habitually  pronounce  one  or 
more  syllables  in  all  words  containing  more  than  one 
syllable.  An  actual  length  of  vowel-sound,  a  superior 
accent,  a  heightening  of  pitch,  any  of  these  or  all  of 
them  at  once,  create  rhythm  in  the  ears  of  those  who 
have  English  for  their  mother-tongue.  Our  ears  are 
not  trained  to  feel  quantity  alone  or  to  receive  a  rhythm 
which  is  purely  quantitative.  Although  it  has  seemed 
convenient  in  these  chapters  to  call  the  more  marked 
syllables  long  and  the  less  marked  syllables  short,  this 


190  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

was  done  only  after  full  warning  that  length  by  itself 
does  not  account  for  English  rhythm.  So  accentual  is 
our  language  that  the  spondee,  the  foot  composed  of 
two  longs,  can  hardly  be  said  to  exist  in  English  verse. 
Milton  was  able  to  achieve  it  now  and  again,  and  so 
was  Tennyson  ;  but  we  are  so  habituated  to  accent  that 
we  find  it  almost  impossible  to  give  equal  weight  to 
two  successive  syllables. 

As  a  result  of  this  fundamental  difference  between 
the  rhythmic  basis  of  Greek  and  Latin  versification 
and  the  rhythmic  basis  of  English  versification,  any 
attempt  to  import  into  our  language  the  classical 
meters  (founded  on  quantity  alone)  is  foredoomed  to 
failure.  Such  an  attempt  can  be  only  the  amusement 
of  the  learned ;  it  cannot  aspire  to  anything  else ;  it 
must  be  foreign  to  any  consideration  of  modern  Eng- 
lish versification.  And  even  the  learned  are  rarely 
satisfied  with  any  particular  imitation  in  English  of 
the  specific  characteristics  of  the  classical  writer.  What 
one  scholar  has  devised  another  scholar  is  likely  to  find 
fault  with.  Coleridge,  for  example,  taking  a  hint  from 
Schiller,  tried  to  exemplify  the  classical  hexameter  and 
pentameter  in  these  two  lines :  — 

In  the  hexameter  rises  the  fountain's  silvery  column  — 
In  the  pentameter  aye  falling  in  melody  back. 

But  this  distich  did  not  meet  with  Tennyson's  appro- 
bation ;  and  he  revised  it,  striving  to  make  it  quanti- 
tative rather  than  accentual :  — 

Up  springs  hexameter,  with  might,  as  a  fountain  arising, 
Lightly  the  fountain  falls,  lightly  the  pentameter. 

It  may  even  be  doubted  whether  Tennyson  would 
have  been  any  better  pleased  with  Longfellow's  at- 
tempt than  he  was  with  Coleridge's :  — 


RIMELESS  STANZAS  191 

In  hexameter  plunges  the  headlong  cataract  downward, 
In  pentameter  up  whirls  the  eddying  mist. 

In  two  other  lines  Coleridge  sought  not  only  to  sug- 
gest in  English  verse  the  largeness  and  the  force  of 
the  Homeric  hexameter,  but  also  to  reproduce  its  met- 
rical arrangement :  — 

Strongly  it  bears  us  along  in  swelling  and  limitless  billows  — 
Nothing  before  and  nothing  behind  but  the  sky  and  the  ocean. 

It  is  possible  that  these  two  lines  were  lingering  in 
Tennyson's  memory  when  he  dismissed  contemptuously 
the  various  strivings  to  carry  over  into  English  the 
"  surge  and  thunder  of  the  Odyssey  " :  — 

These  lame  hexameters  the  strong-wing'd  music  of  Homer  I 
No  —  but  a  most  burlesque  barbarous  experiment. 

When  was  a  harsher  sound  ever  heard,  ye  Muses,  in  England? 
When  did  a  frog  coarser  croak  upon  our  Helicon  ? 

Hexameters  no  worse  than  daring  Germany  gave  us, 
Barbarous  experiment,  barbarous  hexameters. 

English  poets  of  high  distinction,  Tennyson  and 
Swinburne  among  them,  have  sportively  toyed  with 
the  technical  difficulty  of  writing  sapphics  and  alcaics 
in  English.  At  least  one  of  these  interesting  experi- 
ments proved  to  be  truly  a  poem,  valuable  in  itself 
apart  from  the  overcoming  of  the  metrical  difficulties. 
This  is  Tennyson's  poem  in  alcaics  on  "  Milton  " :  — 

O  mighty-mouth'd  inventor  of  harmonies, 
O  skill'd  to  sing  of  Time  or  Eternity, 

God-gifted  organ-voice  of  England, 

Milton,  a  name  to  resound  for  ages  ; 
Whose  Titan  angels,  Gabriel,  Abdiel, 
Starr'd  from  Jehovah's  gorgeous  armories. 

Tower,  as  the  deep-domed  empyrean 

Rings  to  the  roar  of  an  angel  onset ! 
Me  rather  all  that  bowery  loneliness, 
The  brooks  of  Eden  mazily  murmuring, 


192  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

And  bloom  profuse  and  cedar  arches 

Charm,  as  a  wanderer  out  in  ocean, 
Where  some  refulgent  sunset  of  India 
Streams  o'er  a  rich  ambrosial  ocean  isle, 
And  crimson-hued  the  stately  palm-woods 
Whisper  in  odorous  heights  of  even. 

For  the  several  lyrists  this  exercise  in  exotic  meters 
may  have  been  a  valuable  gymnastic  ;  but  it  means  little 
to  the  lovers  of  English  poetry.  The  experiments  may 
not  be  burlesque  and  barbarous ;  they  may  be  refined 
and  delicate ;  but  they  remain  experiments,  none  the 
less,  and  experiments  doomed  to  ultimate  failure. 
Perhaps  the  final  word  on  the  subject  was  uttered 
three  centuries  ago  by  Thomas  Nash :  "  The  hexa- 
meter I  grant  to  be  a  gentleman  of  an  ancient  house 
(so  is  many  an  English  beggar);  yet  this  clime  of 
ours  he  cannot  thrive  in  ;  he  goes  twitching  and  hop- 
ping, retaining  no  part  of  that  stately,  smooth  gait,  of 
which  he  vaunts  himself  among  the  Greeks  and  Ro- 
mans." The  sapphic  and  the  alcaic  in  English  are  no 
better  off  than  the  hexameter ;  they  cannot  divest 
themselves  of  the  strenuous  effort  and  of  the  self-con- 
scious artifice  that  have  gone  to  their  making.  With 
the  aid  of  the  refrain  and  of  alliteration  and  of  repeti- 
tion, English  lyrists  have  won  us  to  accept  lyrics  de- 
void of  rime ;  but  they  have  been  able  to  do  this  only 
when  they  have  chosen  metrical  forms  native  to  our 
tongue,  or  at  least  not  hostile  to  our  system  of  accent- 
ual rhythm. 

Another  foreign  device,  not  transplanted  from  a 
dead  language,  but  taken  over  from  another  modern 
tongue,  was  essayed  by  George  Eliot  in  one  of  the 
songs  of  "  The  Spanish  Gipsy."  As  her  theme  was 
Spanish  she  borrowed  from  Spanish  poetry  a  system 


RIMELESS  STANZAS  193 

of  semi-riming  which  is  known  as  assonance,  the 
vowel-sounds  being  repeated  exactly  while  the  conso- 
nants which  follow  these  vowel-sounds  may  vary  at  the 
caprice  of  the  poet.  Here  are  two  stanzas  :  — 

Maiden,  crowned  with  glossy  blackness, 

Lithe  as  panther  forest-roaming, 
Long-armed  iiaiad,  when  she  dances, 

On  a  stream  of  ether  floating  — 

Bright,  O  bright  Fedalma  ! 

Form  all  curves  like  softness  drifted, 
Wave-kissed  marble  roundly  dimpling, 

Far-off  music  slowly  winge'd, 
Gently  rising,  gently  sinking  — 

Bright,  O  bright  Fedalma  ! 

The  long  o  of  roaming  is  repeated  in  floating  ;  and 
the  short  a  and  short  e  of  blackness  are  echoed  in 
dances.  To  the  Spanish  ear,  trained  to  catch  this  re- 
petition of  the  vowel-sound,  assonance  is  as  accept- 
able as  actual  rime ;  but  to  the  English  ear  there  is 
scarcely  a  suggestion  of  the  author's  intent  to  marry 
blackness  and  dances.  To  us  this  stanza  is  as  though 
it  was  absolutely  unrimed.  The  assonance  is  appre- 
hended only  by  those  who  are  learned  enough  to  know 
that  it  is  employed  by  the  Spaniards.  It  is  quite  pos- 
sible that  our  ears,  once  possessed  of  this  knowledge, 
might  be  trained  to  follow  the  recurring  vowels  ;  but 
this  could  be  achieved  only  by  an  effort  which  would 
violate  the  Economy  of  Attention.  In  blackness  and 
dances  the  assonance  extends  to  two  syllables  and 
thereby  becomes  twice  as  difficult  for  us  to  perceive. 
In  floating  and  roaming  there  is  identity  of  the  termi- 
nal short  syllable ;  and  the  long  o  might  carry  over 
its  impression  from  one  line  to  another.  This  bolder 


194  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

and  more  obvious  assonance  is  akin  to  that  with  which 
we  are  already  familiar  in  proverbs  and  folk-rimes :  — 

Leave  them  alone 
And  they  '11  come  home. 

But  in  these  more  or  less  accidental  variations  from 
strict  rime,  the  changing  consonants  which  follow 
the  unchanged  vowel-sound  do  not  greatly  vary.  In 
alone  and  home,  the  n  and  the  m  are  easily  confounded 
when  sung. 

In  Matthew  Arnold's  "  The  Future,"  the  lines  are 
unrimed ;  but  the  keen  ears  of  an  accomplished  student 
of  verse  have  discovered  a  play  of  assonance,  that  is, 
of  occasional  identity  of  the  final  vowels  of  certain 
pairs  of  lines. 

Haply,' the  river  of  Time  — 

As  it  grows,  as  the  towns  on  its  marge 

Fling  their  wavering  lights 

On  a  wider,  statelier  stream  — 

May  acquire,  if  not  the  calm 

Of  its  early  mountainous  shore, 

Yet  a  solemn  peace  of  its  own. 

And  the  width  of  the  waters,  the  hush 

Of  the  gray  expanse  where  he  floats, 

Freshening  its  current  and  spotted  vrithfoam 

As  it  draws  to  the  ocean,  may  strike 

Peace  to  the  soul  of  the  man  on  its  breast,  — 

As  the  pale  waste  widens  around  him, 

As  the  banks  fade  dimmer  away, 

As  the  stars  come  out,  and  the  night-wtVu? 

Brings  up  the  stream 

Murmurs  and  scents  of  the  infinite  sea. 

Arnold  has  pleased  the  ear  by  the  casual  repetition 
of  the  same  vowel-sound  without  creating  any  exact 
expectation  of  this  recurrence. 

In  the  chapter  on  the  ballade,  the  rondeau  and  the 


RIMELESS  STANZAS  195 

other  fixed  forms,  one  of  these  forms  was  omitted,  the 
sestina,  because  it  was  originally  composed  without 
rime.  The  sestina  is  an  awkward  and  uninviting  form, 
which  is  quite  as  effective  without  rime  as  with  it. 
Although  it  has  tempted  poets  as  variously  gifted  as 
Swinburne  and  Kipling,  it  cannot  be  said  to  have 
demonstrated  its  worthiness.  It  is  so  forced  in  its  for- 
mality that  it  takes  on  an  aspect  of  f  reakishness ;  and 
so  cumbrous  is  its  structure  that  it  can  be  seized  by 
the  ear  only  as  the  result  of  undue  exertion.  Edmund 
Gosse  has  written  an  unrimed  sestina,  of  which  this  is 
the  first  stanza :  — 

In  fair  Provence,  the  land  of  lute  and  rose, 
Arnaut,  great  master  of  the  lore  of  love, 
First  wrought  sestines  to  win  his  lady's  heart, 
For  she  was  deaf  when  simpler  staves  he  sang, 
And  for  her  sake  he  broke  the  bonds  of  rime, 
And  in  this  sabler  measure  had  bis  too. 

The  six  terminal  words  reappear  in  changing  order 
at  the  line-ends  of  all  the  other  five  stanzas,  wo  ending 
the  first  line  of  the  second  stanza,  and  the  other  five 
words  following  in  turn,  the  final  line  ending  with 
heart.  And  heart  then  becomes  the  terminal  word  of 
the  first  line  of  the  third  stanza,  followed  by  wo,  with 
the  rest  of  them  tagging  after.  There  is  an  envoy  of 
three  lines,  in  which  we  find  one  half  of  the  six  words 
at  the  ends  of  the  lines  and  the  other  half  concealed 
in  the  middle :  — 

Ah  !  Sovereign  Love,  forgive  this  weaker  rime, 
The  men  of  old  who  sang,  were  great  at  heart, 
Yet  have  we  too  known  wo,  and  worn  their  rose. 

Swinburne,  following  the  example  of  the  French- 
man, Gramont,  tipped  the  six-line  staves  of  his  sestina 


196  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

with  rimes ;  and  Kipling,  eschewing  rime,  made  use 
of  the  dialect  of  Tommy  Atkins  for  his  "  Sestina  of  the 
Tramp  Royal."  But  rimed  or  unrimed,  picturesquely 
lyrical  or  realistically  prosaic,  the  sestina  is  never  likely 
to  win  favor  in  the  ears  of  listeners  whose  native  speech 
is  English.  Its  arbitrary  artificiality  is  too  subtle  ;  and 
the  difficulty  vanquished  is  not  here  an  adequate  re- 
ward. 

At  the  opposite  extreme  from  the  cumbersome  re- 
straint which  is  imposed  by  the  laws  of  the  sestina  is 
the  lawlessness  which  is  found  in  the  most  of  Walt 
Whitman's  earlier  poems.  Many  poets  of  our  lan- 
guage have  claimed  the  full  freedom  which  results 
from  rejecting  the  strict  stanza  and  the  exact  metrical 
equivalence  of  corresponding  lines.  In  Matthew  Ar- 
nold's "  The  Strayed  Reveler,"  for  example,  we  cannot 
decide  with  certainty  just  what  the  meter  may  be,  so 
large  and  sweeping  is  the  rhythmical  flow  of  the  poem. 
Whitman  went  still  further ;  he  declared  a  revolt  from 
all  the  accepted  conventions  of  English  versification. 
He  proclaimed  the  right  to  be  a  law  unto  himself  and 
asserted  substantially  that  his  formlessness  was  its  own 
excuse  for  being.  He  believed  that  he  had  rejected  all 
tradition,  yet  he  had  plainly  come  under  the  influ- 
ence of  Blake,  and  he  had  been  impressed  also  by  the 
mighty  movement  of  the  Hebrew  rhapsodists  as  this 
had  been  carried  over  into  English  by  the  translators 
under  King  James.  As  a  result  of  this  theory,  many 
passages  of  Whitman  reveal  themselves  as  only  a 
little  removed  from  prose  ;  they  fail  to  give  us  exactly 
the  kind  of  pleasure  which  we  have  been  in  the  habit 
of  expecting  from  poetry.  Whitman  is  most  impres- 
sive when  he  comes  nearest  to  shapeliness  of  structure 


RIMELESS  STANZAS  197 

and  when  he  approaches  most  closely  to  the  flowing 
rhythm  which  delights  us  in  Arnold's  poem,  for  ex- 
ample, and  in  some  of  Blake's.  Desiring  to  break 
away  from  all  the  restrictions,  he  has  won  his  warmest 
welcome  when  his  verse  has  been  most  in  accord  with 
our  normal  expectation.  It  is  significant  that  the  one 
poem  of  Whitman's  which  has  been  taken  to  heart 
by  the  American  people,  "  O  Captain  !  My  Captain," 
is  the  lyric  of  his  which  unhesitatingly  accepts  the 
current  conventions  of  English  verse ;  it  is  in  stanza 
and  in  rime,  and  it  has  a  refrain.  It  is  significant  also 
that  those  of  his  other  poems  which  are  most  admired 
are  those  in  which  he  most  widely  departed  from  his 
own  iconoclastic  theories  and  in  which  he  is  most 
evidently  following  the  broader  current  of  English 
poetry.  Consider,  for  example,  "  When  Lilacs  last  in 
the  Dooryard  Bloom'd,"  one  of  his  threnodies  for 
Lincoln :  — 

When  Lilacs  last  in  the  dooryard  bloom'd, 

And  the   great   star  early  droop'd  in  the  western  sky  in  the 

night, 
I  mourn'd,  and  yet  shall  mourn  with  ever-returning  spring. 

Ever-retnrning  spring,  trinity  sure  you  bring, 

Lilac  blooming  perennial  and  drooping  star  in  the  west, 

And  thought  of  him  I  love. 

Here  is  another  fragment  from  the  same  lofty  and 
aspiring  lyric :  — 

O,  how  shall  I  warble  myself  for  the  dead  one  there  I  loved  ? 
And  how  shall  I  deck  my  song  for  the  large  sweet  soul  that  has 

gone? 
And  what  shall  my  perfume  be  for  the  grave  of  him  I  love  ? 

Sea-winds  blown  from  east  and  west, 

Blown  from  the  Eastern  sea  and  blown  from  the 


198  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Western  sea,  till  there  on  the  prairies  meeting, 
These  and  with  these  and  the  breath  of  my  chant, 
I  '11  perfume  the  grave  of  him  I  love. 

This  may  seem  irregular,  but  it  is  scarcely  more  ir- 
regular than  Arnold's  "  The  Strayed  Reveler  "  or  than 
Southey's  "  Thalaba."  It  is  free  and  spontaneous,  but 
it  carries  at  least  the  suggestion  of  a  definite  form.  It 
is  the  utterance  of  deep  emotion,  liberal  and  surging, 
but  sustained  and  restrained  by  art.  It  has  a  technic 
of  its  own,  not  narrow  and  confined,  not  easily  de- 
clared with  precision,  and  yet  felt  and  appreciated. 
Whitman's  best  poetry  is  the  work  of  his  maturity, 
when  he  had  fully  mastered  his  new  form,  which,  as 
Professor  Carpenter  put  it,  "  hovered  between  prose 
and  verse."  He  had  found  his  instrument  at  last ;  "  it 
was  living,  musical,  rhythmical,  impassioned  speech. 
If  it  had  a  prototype  or  an  origin,  it  may  be  said  to 
have  been  born  of  the  rhythm  which  he  heard  in  na- 
ture and  of  his  memories  of  the  arias  and  recitatives 
of  the  Italian  opera." 

"  A  man  who  finds  that  his  gloves  cripple  him  does 
right  in  drawing  them  off,"  said  Stedman ;  "  at  first 
Whitman  certainly  meant  to  escape  all  technic.  But 
genius,  in  spite  of  itself,  makes  works  that  stand  the 
test  of  scientific  laws."  And  the  keen  critic  added 
that  "  unrimed  verse,  the  easiest  to  write,  is  the 
hardest  to  excel  in,  and  no  measure  for  a  bardling." 
What  is  too  easy  is  not  worth  while  ;  and  the  greatest 
artists  are  those  who  have  most  eagerly  accepted  the 
specific  limitations  under  which  a  given  piece  of  work 
had  to  be  done ;  so  far  from  rejecting  technic,  they 
have  ever  been  athirst  for  new  devices ;  and  it  has 
been  their  pride  always  to  prove  that  although  bound, 


RB1ELESS  STANZAS  199 

they  could  be  free.  And  this  Whitman  came  in  time 
to  feel,  even  though  he  may  never  have  confessed  it 
even  to  himself.  Those  move  easiest  who  have  learned 
to  dance  ;  and  in  "  When  Lilacs  last  in  the  Dooryard 
Bloom'd"  Whitman  proved  he  had  devised  a  form, 
loose,  large  and  free,  exactly  suited  to  his  own  needs. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE    COUPLET 

With  the  substitution  of  heroic  for  unrimed  verse,  the  theory  and 
practice  of  harmony  in  English  composition  were  altered.  What  was 
essentially  national  in  our  poetry  —  the  music  of  sustained  periods, 
elastic  in  their  structure,  and  governed  by  the  subtlest  laws  of  melody 
in  recurring  consonants  and  vowels  —  was  sacrificed  for  the  artificial 
eloquence  and  monotonous  cadence  of  the  couplet.  For  a  century  and 
a  half  the  summit  of  all  excellence  in  versification  was  the  construc- 
tion of  neat  pairs  of  lines,  smooth  indeed  and  polished,  but  scarcely 
varying  in  their  form. — JOHN  ADDINGTON  SYMONDS  :  Blank  Verse. 

FOR  the  expression  of  lyrical  sentiment,  the  poets  have 
generally  chosen  some  form  of  the  stanza,  —  a  single 
quatrain,  an  octave,  a  sonnet,  a  ballade,  or  a  sequence 
of  whatever  unit  they  have  deemed  most  fit  for  their 
purpose.  For  narrative,  they  have  also  employed  not 
infrequently  a  succession  of  stanzas,  notably  in  the 
ballad,  which  sets  forth  a  story  running  over  from 
one  quatrain  into  another  until  the  tale  is  told.  But 
more  often  the  poets  have  preferred  not  to  cut  up  their 
narrative  into  equal  parts  and  not  to  confine  them- 
selves within  the  narrow  limits  of  any  stanza-form. 

If  the  poet  decides  that  his  story  will  profit  by  the 
aid  of  rime,  he  is  likely  to  select  one  of  three  meters, 
anapestic  tetrameter,  iambic  tetrameter,  or  iambic 
pentameter,  generally  riming  in  couplets.  Of  these 
three  the  iambic  pentameter,  commonly  known  as  the 
"  heroic  couplet,"  has  been  most  frequently  employed. 
The  heroic  couplet  has  served  not  only  for  narrative, 
but  also  for  contemplative,  philosophic,  descriptive 


THE  COUPLET  201 

and  satiric  expression.  It  demands  more  detailed  con- 
sideration here  than  either  of  the  other  meters  ;  and 
these  had  therefore  better  be  discussed  briefly  before 
the  heroic  couplet  itself  is  analyzed.  And  as  the  ana- 
pestic  tetrameter  has  been  less  often  employed  than 
the  iambic  tetrameter,  it  may  be  considered  first. 

Although  Byron  has  chosen  to  print  "  The  Destruc- 
tion of  Sennacherib  "  in  stanzas  of  four  lines  each,  its 
movement  is  continuous  and  the  unit  of  construction 
rather  is  the  single  couplet  than  the  pair  of  couplets 
joined  to  suggest  a  quatrain  to  the  eye.  The  ear  would 
find  it  almost  impossible  to  detect  any  break  between 
the  successive  quatrains.  Indeed,  the  three  final  stanzas 
begin  each  of  them  with  an  and  which  ties  them 
closely  to  their  predecessor  :  — 

The  Assyrian  came  down  like  the  wolf  on  the  fold, 
And  his  cohorts  were  gleamiug  in  purple  and  gold  ; 
Aiid  the  sheen  of  their  spears  was  like  stars  on  the  sea, 
When  the  blue  wave  rolls  nightly  on  deep  Galilee. 

Like  the  leaves  of  the  forest  when  summer  is  green, 
That  host  with  their  banners  at  sunset  were  seen  : 
Like  the  leaves  of  the  forest  when  autumn  hath  blown, 
That  host  on  the  morrow  lay  wither'd  and  strown. 

For  the  Angel  of  Death  spread  his  wings  on  the  blast, 
And  breathed  in  the  face  of  the  foe  as  he  pass'd  ; 
And  the  eyes  of  the  sleepers  wax'd  deadly  and  chill, 
And  their  hearts  but  once  heaved,  and  forever  grew  still  I 

And  there  lay  the  steed  with  his  nostril  all  wide, 
But  through  it  there  roll'd  not  the  breath  of  his  pride  : 
And  the  foam  of  his  gasping  lay  white  on  the  turf, 
And  cold  as  the  spray  of  the  rock-beating  surf. 

And  there  lay  the  rider  distorted  and  pale, 

With  the  dew  on  his  brow,  and  the  rust  on  bis  mail ; 


802  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

And  the  tents  were  all  silent,  the  banners  alone, 
The  lances  unlifted,  the  trumpet  unblown. 

And  the  widows  of  Ashur  are  loud  in  their  wail, 
And  the  idols  are  broke  in  the  temple  of  Baal  ; 
And  the  might  of  the  Gentile,  unsmote  by  the  sword, 
Hath  melted  like  snow  in  the  glance  of  the  Lord  ! 

The  essential  quality  of  this  meter,  as  it  is  disclosed 
in  this  poem  of  Byron's,  is  swiftness ;  it  has  an  irre- 
sistible onward  rush,  due  to  the  anapestic  rhythm  it- 
self. This  is  the  reason  why  Browning  used  anapests 
in  his  galloping  lines  on  "  How  They  Brought  the  Good 
News  from  Ghent  to  Aix." 

This  same  rapidity  we  find  earlier,  here  and  there, 
in  Dryden's  "  Alexander's  Feast,"  for  example,  in 
these  two  lines :  — 

The  princes  applaud,  with  a  furious  joy  ; 

And  the  king  seized  a  flambeau  with  zeal  to  destroy. 

Yet  the  same  meter  is  employed  by  Cowper  in 
"  The  Poplar  Field,"  wherein  he  is  striving  rather  for 
an  unhurried  effect :  — 

The  poplars  are  felled  ;  farewell  to  the  shade, 
And  the  whispering  sound  of  the  cool  colonnade  ; 
The  winds  play  no  longer  and  sing  in  the  leaves, 
Nor  Ouse  on  his  bosom  their  image  receives. 
Twelve  years  have  elapsed  since  I  first  took  a  view 
Of  my  favorite  field,  and  the  bank  where  they  grew, 
And  now  in  the  grass  behold  they  are  laid, 
And  the  tree  is  my  seat  that  once  lent  me  a  shade. 

Although  Cowper  chose  this  meter  for  a  contempla- 
tive poem,  it  has  been  employed  most  often  in  humor- 
ous verse,  and  more  especially  in  satire.  Its  briskness, 
its  facility,  its  easy  brilliancy  aid  the  versifier  to  make 
his  lines  glittering  and  pointed.  There  can  be  no  bet- 


THE  COUPLET  20s 

ter  example  of  this  than  Goldsmith's  delicate  and 

delightful  "  Retaliation  "  :  — 

Here  Reynolds  is  laid,  and,  to  tell  you  my  mind, 

He  has  not  left  a  wiser  or  better  behind. 

His  pencil  was  striking,  resistless  and  grand  ; 

His  manners  were  gentle,  complying,  and  bland  ; 

Still  born  to  improve  us  in  every  part, 

His  pencil  our  faces,  his  manners  our  heart. 

To  coxcombs  averse,  yet  most  civilly  steering  ; 

When  they  judged  without  skill,  he  was  still  hard  of  bearing  ; 

When  they  talked  of  Raphaels,  Correggios,  and  stuff, 

He  shifted  his  trumpet,  and  only  took  snuff. 

Possibly  it  was  a  recalling  of  the  success  with  which 
Goldsmith  had  used  this  meter  for  his  gallery  of  por- 
traits that  led  Lowell  to  choose  it  also  for  the  series 
of  character-studies  which  he  included  in  "  A  Fable 
for  Critics,"  in  which  he  is  as  acute  as  Goldsmith,  al- 
though a  little  less  tolerant,  as  well  as  a  little  more 
wilfully  clever  in  the  invention  of  novel  rimes :  — 

There  comes  Poe,  with  his  raven,  like  Barnaby  Rudge, 
Three  fifths  of  him  genius  and  two  fifths  sheer  fudge, 
Who  talks  like  a  book  of  iambs  and  pentameters, 
In  a  way  to  make  people  of  common  sense  damn  meters, 
Who  has  written  some  things  quite  the  best  of  their  kind, 
But  the  heart  somehow  seems  all  squeezed  out  by  the  mind. 

Lowell's  criticism  of  Bryant  is  as  candid  and  as  acute 
as  his  criticism  of  Poe ;  and  it  is  also  quite  as  ingen- 
ious in  its  riming  and  in  its  rhythmic  swing :  — 

There  is  Bryant,  as  quiet,  as  cool,  and  as  dignified 

As  a  smooth,  silent  iceberg,  that  never  is  iguified, 

Save  when  by  reflection  't  is  kindled  o'  nights 

With  a  semblance  of  flame  by  the  chill  Northern  Lights. 

He  may  rank  (Griswold  says  so)  first  bard  of  your  nation 

(There  's  no  doubt  that  he  stands  in  supreme  iceolation), 

Your  topmost  Parnassus  he  may  set  his  heel  on, 


204  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

But  no  warm  applauses  come,  peal  following  peal  on,  — 
He  's  too  smooth  and  polished  to  hang  any  zeal  on  : 
Unqualified  merits,  I  '11  grant,  if  you  choose,  he  has  'em, 
But  he  lacks  the  one  merit  of  kindling  enthusiasm  ; 
If  he  stir  you  at  all,  it  is  just,  on  my  soul, 
Like  being  stirred  up  with  the  very  North  Pole. 

These  extracts  from  Goldsmith  and  from  Lowell 
serve  to  exemplify  the  privilege  of  commingling  double 
and  treble  rimes  with  the  single  rimes  which  are 
the  staple  of  the  anapestic  tetrameter.  Indeed,  when 
this  meter  is  used  for  a  humorous  or  satiric  purpose 
there  is  an  almost  irresistible  temptation  to  devise  un- 
expected rimes  and  to  decorate  the  edges  with  sound- 
combinations  never  before  attempted.  The  lyrist  has 
also  the  privilege  of  substituting  iambics  for  anapests, 
more  often  in  the  first  foot,  but  also  on  occasion  in 
the  second  or  third ;  —  although  this  privilege  can  be 
availed  of  only  at  the  peril  of  slackening  the  swift 
movement.  And  the  versifier  may  even  inject,  now 
and  again,  a  couplet  of  dimeters,  without  retarding 
the  flow  of  his  lines.  This  is  what  Barbara  did  unhes- 
itatingly in  his  "  Ingoldsby  Legends,"  as  will  be  seen 
in  this  extract  from  "  The  Jackdaw  of  Rheims  "  :  — 

The  Cardinal  rose  with  a  dignified  look, 

He  called  for  his  candle,  his  bell,  and  his  book  : 

In  holy  anger,  and  pious  grief, 

He  solemnly  curs'd  that  rascally  thief  ! 

He  curs'd  him  at  board,  he  curs'd  him  in  bed, 

From  the  sole  of  his  foot  to  the  crown  of  his  head ! 

He  curs'd  him  in  sleeping,  that  every  night 

He  should  dream  of  the  devil,  and  wake  in  a  fright  ; 

He  curs'd  him  in  eating,  he  curs'd  him  in  drinking, 

He  curs'd  him  in  coughing,  in  sneezing,  in  winking  ; 

He  curs'd  him  in  sitting,  in  standing,  in  lying  ; 

He  curs'd  him  in  walking,  in  riding,  in  flying  ; 

He  curs'd  him  in  living,  he  curs'd  him  dying  I 


THE  COUPLET  205 

Never  was  heard  such  a  terrible  curse  I 

But  what  gave  rise 

To  no  little  surprise, 
Nobody  seem'd  a  penny  the  worse  ! 

The  anapestic  tetrameter  is  thus  seen  to  have  ex- 
traordinary flexibility ;  it  may  rime  in  couplets  or  in 
triplets  or  for  four  and  five  lines  in  succession ;  it 
may  utilize  at  will  single  or  double  or  treble  rimes ; 
it  may  shrink  to  eight  or  nine  syllables,  as  in  Bar- 
ham's 

In  holy  anger,  and  pious  grief, 

or  it  may  expand  to  fourteen  syllables,  as  in  Lowell's 
As  a  smooth,  silent  iceberg,  that  never  is  ignified. 

It  can  go  on  frolicking  and  rollicking  in  the  utmost 
high  spirits,  with  the  rushing  tumult  of  a  cataract. 

Certain  of  the  same  qualities,  especially  the  swift- 
ness, although  a  little  relaxed,  can  be  found  also  in  the 
iambic  tetrameter,  particularly  when  it  is  used  for 
satire  as  it  was  by  Butler,  by  Churchill  and  by  Trum- 
bull.  But  what  the  iambic  tetrameter  lacks  in  speed, 
it  makes  up  in  sententiousness,  as  we  note  in  the  fa- 
miliar couplets  of  "  McFingal "  :  — 

But  rogue  ne'er  yet  felt  halter  draw, 
With  good  opinion  of  the  law, 

and 

For  optics  sharp  it  needs,  I  ween, 
To  see  what  never  can  be  seen. 

The  same  pregnant  concision  is  to  be  found  in  Butler  :— 

Great  conquerors  greater  glories  gain 
By  foes  in  triumph  led  than  slain, 
and 

Ay  me  !  what  perils  do  environ 

The  man  that  meddles  with  cold  iron  t 


206  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Butler  indulges  also  in  the  arbitrary  and  inventive 
riming  that  we  find  later  in  Lowell :  — 

When  pulpit,  drum  ecclesiastick, 
la  beat  with  fist  instead  of  a  stick. 

(Strictly  speaking,  this  is  not  a  true  rime,  since  the 
second  line  merely  repeats  without  the  proper  varia- 
tion the  terminal  sound  of  the  first  line.) 

The  iambic  tetrameter  has  served  other  purposes 
than  satire.  Chaucer  employed  it  in  "  The  House  of 
Fame,"  Milton  in  "  II  Penseroso,"  Burns  in  "  Tarn 
o'  Shanter,"  Byron  in  "The  Prisoner  of  Chillon," 
Wordsworth  in  "  The  White  Doe,"  Scott  in  "  Mar- 
mion "  and  "  The  Lady  of  the  Lake,"  Whittier  in 
"  Maud  Muller  "  and  "  Barbara  Frietchie."  Scott,  in- 
deed, was  frank  in  declaring  his  preference  for  the 
iambic  tetrameter  over  the  pentameter  for  purposes 
of  narrative,  although  perhaps  not  for  descriptive 
poetry.  He  held  that  the  tetrameter  "  is  capable  of 
certain  varieties  denied  to  the  heroic  couplet.  Double 
rimes,  for  instance,  are  congenial  to  it.  ...  You 
may  also  render  it  more  or  less  rapid  by  retaining  or 
dropping  an  occasional  syllable.  Lastly,  it  runs  better 
into  sentences  than  any  length  of  line  I  know,  as  it 
corresponds,  upon  an  average  view  of  our  punctua- 
tion, very  commonly  with  the  proper  and  usual  space 
between  comma  and  comma."  And  then  Scott  added, 
as  a  final  reason  for  his  liking,  that  he  had  "  somehow 
a  better  knack  at  this "  meter  than  at  the  longer 
pentameter.  In  other  words,  Scott  found  iambic  te- 
trameters easy  to  write ;  and  so  they  are ;  and  this 
facility  is  often  fatal  to  them,  since  they  may  flow  too 
fast  and  without  sufficient  thought  and  emotion  be- 


THE  COUPLET  207 

hind  them.  As  Holmes  pointed  out,  the  iambic  tetra- 
meter does  not  conform  to  our  normal  breathing; 
it  forces  us  to  hurry  and  to  take  short  breaths.  It 
may  be  rapid,  as  indeed  it  is  in  the  movement  of 
Scott's  narrative  passages  ;  but  it  tends  hi  tune  to  be  fa- 
tiguing. It  lacks  the  broader  scope  of  the  pentameter, 
which  is  better  adjusted  to  our  natural  inspiration 
and  expiration.  Yet  Scott  was  right  in  thinking  that 
it  was  a  satisfactory  meter  for  the  bold  and  lusty 
deeds  he  desired  to  set  forth  in  verse  ;  and  he  modi- 
fied its  rigidity  under  two  influences.  One  of  these 
was  the  old  English  ballad  which  he  had  absorbed 
so  absolutely,  and  from  which  he  borrowed  the  privi- 
lege of  dropping  the  strict  couplet,  now  and  then, 
and  employing  a  quatrain  with  its  interlaced  runes, 
and  with  its  occasional  trimeter  lines  to  relieve  the 
monotony  of  the  tetrameter.  And  the  other  influ- 
ence was  that  of  Coleridge's  "  Christabel,"  which  he 
had  seen  or  heard  before  its  publication.  Coleridge 
had  Deliberately  departed  from  the  strict  eight  sylla- 
bles of  the  rigid  iambic  tetrameter  as  that  had  been 
written  by  his  immediate  predecessors.  He  claimed  the 
right  to  vary  iambics  with  anapests  and  to  drop  out 
syllables  at  will,  if  the  sense  explained  the  resulting 
pause ;  he  professed  to  reserve  the  privilege  of  varying 
the  number  of  syllables  in  any  line  from  seven  to 
twelve  as  long  as  he  retained  the  four  long  syllables 
which  were  the  backbone  of  the  meter.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  he  went  so  far  as  to  put  only  four  syllables 
into  one  of  his  lines :  — 

'T  is  the  middle  of  night  by  the  castle  clock, 
And  the  owls  have  awakened  the  crowing  cock, 
Tu — whit  1  Tu — whoo  i 


208  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Here  Coleridge  is  rather  anapestic  than  iambic, 
whereas  Scott  following  him  is  more  regularly  iambic, 
although  not  without  an  occasional  anapest,  which  gives 
enhanced  rapidity  to  his  lines :  — 

"Now,  in  good  sooth,"  Lord  Marmion  cried, 

*'  Were  I  in  warlike  wise  to  ride, 
A  better  guard  I  would  not  lack 
Than  your  stout  forayers  at  my  back; 
But  as  in  form  of  peace  I  go, 
A  friendly  messenger,  to  know 
Why,  through  all  Scotland,  near  and  far, 
Their  king  is  mustering  troops  for  war, 
The  sight  of  plundering  Border  spears 
Might  justify  suspicious  fears, 
And  deadly  feud  or  thirst  of  spoil 
Break  out  in  some  unseemly  broil." 

It  is  curious  that  Scott,  brought  up  on  the  iambic 
pentameter,  which  still  retained  its  vogue  in  his  youth, 
should  have  abandoned  it  in  his  narrative  poems, 
when  his  great  predecessors  in  the  art  of  story-telling 
in  verse,  Chaucer  and  Dryden,  long  familiar  with  the 
tetrameter,  seem  to  have  introduced  the  pentameter 
as  an  ampler  instrument  for  the  same  purpose. 
Chaucer  and  Dryden  are  not  only  greater  poets  than 
Scott ;  they  are  also  far  more  consummate  metrists, 
far  more  careful  and  conscientious  artists  in  verse. 
The  explanation  of  Scott's  reversion  to  the  meter 
Chaucer  had  abandoned  is  probably  to  be  found  in 
the  fact  that  he  found  the  pentameter  after  it  had 
received  the  impress  of  Pope,  whereby  it  had  lost  not  a 
little  of  the  easy  spontaneity  with  which  Chaucer  had 
endowed  it.  In  Pope's  hands  the  iambic  pentameter 
had  stiffened;  it  had  become  antithetic  and  artifi- 
cial. There  is  more  than  a  little  truth  in  Cowper's 


THE  COUPLET  209 

assertion  that  Pope  had  "  made  poetry  a  mere  mechanic 
art " ;  —  at  least  Pope  had  made  the  mechanism  of 
verse  more  obvious,  and  never  more  obvious  than  in 
his  handling  of  the  heroic  couplet.  Perhaps  the  dif- 
ference between  this  meter  as  Pope  used  it  and  as 
Chaucer  had  used  it  can  be  indicated  by  declaring  that 
in  Pope's  hands  it  is  strictly  the  heroic  couplet,  with 
the  thought  firmly  clamped  within  two  riming  lines, 
whereas  in  Chaucer  it  is  rather  to  be  called  iambic 
pentameter  flowing  ever  freely  from  line  to  line  with 
no  rigid  limitation  of  the  sense  within  the  successive 
pairs  of  rimes. 

Although  the  main  purpose  of  the  present  book  is 
not  to  give  the  history  of  English  versification  but  to 
dwell  on  its  principles  and  on  its  practice,  the  import- 
ance of  the  rimed  iambic  pentameter  is  such  that 
a  brief  chronological  survey  is  here  justifiable,  —  in- 
deed, the  rich  variety  of  which  this  meter  is  capable 
can  best  be  shown  by  considering  its  development. 
The  easy  amplitude  of  the  iambic  pentameter  as 
Chaucer  handled  it  will  be  found  also  in  Spenser's 
treatment.  It  retained  its  fluidity  and  openness  in 
Marlowe  and  Shakspere;  but  it  tightened  and 
stiffened  in  Ben  Jonson's  hands.  Waller  refined  on 
Jonson  and  Pope  on  Waller,  until  the  heroic  couplet 
became  antithetical,  exactly  balanced,  with  the  mean- 
ing rigidly  compacted  into  a  single  line  or  at  most 
within  the  pair  of  rimes.  At  its  worst  the  heroic 
couplet  as  Pope  had  sharpened  and  polished  it  justi- 
fies Lowell's  assertion  that  "  Mr.  Pope's  versification 
was  like  the  regular  ticking  of  one  of  Willard's  clocks, 
in  which  we  could  fancy,  after  long  listening,  a  certain 
kind  of  rhythm  or  tune,  but  which  yet  was  only  a 


210  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

poverty-stricken  tick,  tick,  after  all."  And  in  "  A 
Fable  for  Critics"  Lowell  declared  that  the  heroic 
couplet  was 

what  I  call  a  sham  meter, 
But  many  admire  it,  the  English  pentameter. 

Here  Lowell  is  in  disaccord  with  Holmes,  who  liked 
to  write  the  iambic  pentameter  and  who  loved  to 
praise  it :  — 

The  proud  heroic^  with  its  pulse-like  beat, 
Kings  like  the  cymbals,  clashing  as  they  meet. 

This  couplet  is  from  one  of  his  earlier  poems ;  and 
in  one  of  his  later  lyrics  Holmes  with  even  more 
emphasis  again  declared  the  faith  that  was  in  him :  — 

And  so  the  hand  that  takes  the  lyre  for  you 

Plays  the  old  tune  on  strings  that  once  were  new. 

Nor  let  the  rimester  of  the  hour  deride 

The  straight-backed  measure  with  its  stately  stride, 

It  gave  the  mighty  voice  of  Dryden  scope; 

It  sheathed  the  steel-bright  epigrams  of  Pope; 

In  Goldsmith's  verse  it  learned  a  sweeter  strain; 

Byron  and  Campbell  wore  its  clanking  chain; 

I  smile  to  listen  while  the  critic's  scorn 

Flouts  the  proud  purple  kings  have  nobly  worn. 

Holmes  himself  relished  the  heroic  couplet  as  it 
had  been  edged  and  pointed  by  Pope ;  and  though  he 
cited  Goldsmith  and  Campbell,  he  failed  to  mention 
the  later  poets  who  have  used  the  iambic  pentameter 
with  the  same  large  liberty  that  Chaucer  enjoyed. 
Leigh  Hunt  led  the  way  in  emancipating  this  meter, 
and  he  was  followed  immediately  by  Keats  and  Shelley. 
And  later  it  was  employed  by  Swinburne  and  Morris, 
with  a  freedom  from  mere  antithesis,  which  made  this 
measure  in  their  hands  a  very  different  instrument 


THE  COUPLET  211 

from  what  it  had  been  in  the  hands  of  Pope  and  of 
his  less  gifted  disciples. 

But  the  full  possibilities  of  the  iambic  pentameter 
can  best  be  shown  by  a  sequence  of  selections  from 
successive  poets.  Here  is  an  extract  from  the  pro- 
log  to  the  "  Canterbury  Tales  "  :  — 

A  knyght  ther  was,  and  that  a  worthy  man, 
That  fro  the  tyme  that  he  first  bigan 
To  riden  out,  he  loved  chivalrie, 
Trouthe  and  honour,  fredom  and  curteisie. 
Ful  worthy  was  he  iu  his  lorde's  werre, 
And  therto  hadde  he  riden,  no  man  ferre, 
As  wel  in  cristendom  as  in  hetheuesse, 
And  evere  honoured  for  his  wortkynesse. 

These  lines  have  the  flowing  ease  so  characteristic 
of  Chaucer.  The  rimes  are  not  sharply  emphasized 
and  the  sense  is  not  shut  up  in  a  line  or  even  in  a 
couplet.  Neither  the  line  nor  the  couplet  is  the  unit 
of  structure.  And  these  same  characteristics  are  visi- 
ble also  in  this  passage,  from  Spenser's  "  Shepherd's 
Calendar":  — 

There  grewe  an  aged  Tree  on  the  greene, 
A  goodly  Oake  sometime  had  it  bene. 
With  armes  full  strong  and  lergely  display'd, 
But  of  their  leaves  they  were  disarayde: 
The  bodie  bigge,  and  mightely  pight, 
Thoroughly  rooted,  and  of  wonderous  height, 
Whilome  had  bene  the  King  of  the  field, 
And  mochell  mast  to  the  husband  did  yielde, 
And  with  his  nuts  larded  many  swine: 
But  now  the  gray  mosse  marred  his  rine; 
His  bared  boughes  were  beaten  with  stormes, 
His  toppe  was  bald,  and  wasted  with  wormes. 

This  may  lack  the  spontaneity  of  Chaucer's  verse ; 
but  a  little  awkward  as  it  may  be,  it  runs  on  with  its 
initial  impetus,  never  arrested  arbitrarily  at  the  end 


212  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

of  a  line  or  a  couplet.  The  movement  of  the  narrative 
is  possibly  a  little  slower  than  in  these  lines  from 
Marlowe's  "  Hero  and  Leander  " :  — 

On  Hellespont,  guilty  of  true  love's  blood, 

In  view  and  opposite  two  cities  stood, 

Sea-borderers,  disjoined  by  Neptune's  might; 

The  one  Abydos,  the  other  Sestos  hight. 

At  Sestos  Hero  dwelt;  Hero  the  fair, 

Whom  young  Apollo  courted  for  her  hair, 

And  offer'd  as  a  dower  his  burning  throne, 

Where  she  should  sit,  for  men  to  gaze  upon. 

The  outside  of  her  garments  were  of  lawn, 

The  lining  purple  silk,  with  gilt  stars  drawn; 

Her  wide  sleeves  green,  and  bordered  with  a  grove, 

Where  Venus  in  her  naked  glory  strove 

To  please  the  careless  and  disdainful  eyes 

Of  proud  Adonis,  that  before  her  lies. 

The  example  from  Shakspere  may  be  taken  from 
an  early  play,  written  when  he  was  most  under  the 
influence  of  Marlowe.  Here  is  part  of  a  speech  from 
"  Love's  Labor 's  Lost " :  — 

Under  the  cool  shade  of  a  sycamore 
I  thought  to  close  mine  eyes  some  half  an  hour  ; 
When,  lo  !  to  interrupt  my  purpos'd  rest, 
Toward  that  shade  I  might  behold  address'd 
The  King  and  his  companions.  Warily 
I  stole  into  a  neighbor  thicket  by, 
And  overheard  what  you  shall  overbear, 
That,  by  and  by,  disguis'd  they  will  be  here. 
Their  herald  is  a  pretty  knavish  page, 
That  well  by  heart  hath  conn'd  his  embassage. 
Action  and  accent  did  they  teach  him  there  ; 
"Thus  must  thou  speak,"  and  "thus  thy  body  bear" ; 
And  ever  and  anon  they  made  a  doubt 
Presence  majestical  would  put  him  out. 

In  all  these  specimens  of  iambic  pentameter  from 
Chaucer  to  Shakspere  we  find  the  sense  gliding  on  from 


THE  COUPLET  213 

line  to  line,  with  no  undue  emphasis  on  the  rimes  and 
with  no  effort  to  arrest  the  movement  within  the  limit  of 
the  couplet.  In  Ben  Jonson,  we  begin  to  find  the  mo- 
tion less  easy;  we  catch  a  dawning  desire  for  antithesis ; 
we  discover  already  a  certain  snap  at  the  end  of  the 
line ;  we  perceive  an  increasing  tendency  toward  sen- 
tentiousness ;  and  our  attention  is  more  often  called  to 
the  couplet  itself.  These  characteristics  are  already 
visible  in  Jonson's  epigram  "To  my  mere  English 
Censure  " :  — 

To  thee,  my  way  in  epigrams  seems  new, 
When  both  it  is  the  old  way_.  and  the  true. 
Thou  sayst  that  cannot  be  ;  for  thou  hast  seen 
Davis  and  Weever,  and  the  best  have  been. 
And  mine  come  nothing  like.  I  hope  so  ;  yet, 
As  theirs  did  with  thee,  mine  might  credit  get. 
If  thou  'dst  but  use  thy  faith,  as  thou  didst  then, 
When  tbou  wert  wont  t'  admire,  not  censure  men. 
Prithee  believe  still,  and  judge  not  so  fast  : 
Thy  faith  is  all  the  knowledge  that  thou  hast. 

The  characteristics  which  we  can  only  glimpse  in 
Jonson  are  overtly  revealed  in  Waller.  Dry  den  de- 
clared that  "  the  excellence  and  dignity  of  rime  were 
never  fully  known  until  Mr.  Waller  taught  it ;  he  first 
made  writing  easily  an  art,  first  showed  us  to  conclude 
the  sense,  most  commonly  in  distichs,  which  in  the  verse 
of  those  before  him  runs  on  for  so  many  lines  together, 
that  the  reader  is  out  of  breath  to  overtake  it."  It  was 
Waller  who  pointed  the  path  to  Dryden  himself  and 
after  Dryden  to  Pope.  In  his  hands  the  couplet  became 
the  obvious  unit  of  structure  ;  in  fact,  in  his  verse,  the 
poem  had  the  unity  only  of  a  chain  of  which  the  coup- 
lets are  the  several  links.  Here  is  Waller's  account  of 
"  His  Majesty's  Escape  "  :  — 


214  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

While  to  his  harp  divine  Arion  sings 

The  loves  and  conquests  of  our  Albion  kings  ; 

Of  the  fourth  Edward  was  his  noble  song, 

Fierce,  goodly,  valiant,  beautiful  and  young ; 

He  rent  the  crown  from  vanquished  Henry's  head, 

Raised  the  White  Rose,  and  trampled  on  the  Red, 

Till  love,  triumphing  o'er  the  victor's  pride, 

Brought  Mars  and  Warwick  to  the  conquered  sidef  — 

Neglected  Warwick,  whose  bold  hand  like  fate, 

Gives  and  resumes  the  sceptre  of  our  state, 

Woos  for  his  master,  and  with  double  shame, 

Himself  deluded,  mocks  the  princely  dame, 

The  Lady  Bona,  whom  just  anger  burns, 

And  foreign  war  with  civil  rage  returns  ; 

Ah !  spare  your  swords,  where  beauty  is  to  blame, 

Love  gave  the  affront,  and  must  repair  the  same, 

When  France  shall  boast  of  her,  whose  conquering  eyes 

Have  made  the  best  of  English  hearts  their  prize, 

Have  power  to  alter  the  decrees  of  fate, 

And  change  again  the  counsels  of  our  state. 

Dryden  followed  Waller  and  easily  bettered  his 
model  because  lie  was  truly  a  poet,  which  Waller 
chanced  to  be  only  in  a  lyric  or  two,  almost  by  acci- 
dent. Dryden  refused  to  let  his  meaning  run  on  line 
after  line.  He  isolated  the  couplet,  and  thus  empha- 
sized the  importance  of  the  rime.  He  yielded  to  a 
rhetorical  temptation  and  used  antithesis  to  balance 
his  lines.  His  verse  became  compacter  and  more  sen- 
tentious, because  he  relied  more  often  on  his  wit  than 
on  his  imagination.  In  his  hands  the  iambic  pentame- 
ter ought  rather  to  be  described  as  the  heroic  couplet ; 
and  no  one  has  used  this  implement  with  more  certain 
mastery  than  Dryden.  Here  is  a  fragment  from  one  of 
his  satires,  the  famous  portrait  of  the  infamous  Duke 
of  Buckingham :  — 

Some  of  their  chiefs  were  princes  of  the  land  : 
In  the  first  rank  of  these  did  Zimri  stand ; 


THE  COUPLET  «15 

A  man  so  various,  that  he  seemed  to  be 
Not  one,  but  all  mankind's  epitome  : 
Stiff  in  opinions,  always  in  the  wrong  ; 
Was  everything  by  starts,  and  nothing  long  ; 
But,  in  the  course  of  one  revolving  moon, 
Was  chemist,  fiddler,  statesman,  and  buffoon  : 
Then  all  for  women,  painting,  rhyming,  drinking, 
Besides  ten  thousand  freaks  that  died  in  thinking. 
Blest  madman,  who  could  every  hour  employ, 
With  something  new  to  wish,  or  to  enjoy  ! 
Railing  and  praising  were  his  usual  themes  ; 
And  both,  to  show  his  judgment,  in  extremes  : 
So  over-violent,  or  over-civil, 
That  every  man,  with  him,  was  God  or  Devil. 
In  squandering  wealth  was  his  peculiar  art : 
Nothing  went  unrewarded  but  desert. 
Beggared  by  fools,  whom  still  he  found  too  late. 
He  had  his  jest,  and  they  had  his  estate. 
He  laughed  himself  from  court ;  then  sought  relief 
By  forming  parties,  but  could  ne'er  be  chief  ; 
For,  spite  of  him,  the  weight  of  business  fell 
On  Absalom  and  wise  Achitophel : 
Thus,  wicked  but  in  will,  of  means  bereft, 
He  left  not  faction,  but  of  that  was  left. 

The  heroic  couplet,  which  seems  to  be  best  fitted  for 
satire,  Dryden  employed  also  in  narrative,  with  the 
same  certainty  of  stroke.  Here  is  his  spirited  descrip- 
tion of  a  tourney  in  "  Palamon  and  Arcite  "  :  — 

At  this  the  challenger,  with  fierce  defy, 

His  trumpet  sounds;  the  challeng'd  makes  reply : 

With  clangor  rings  the  field,  resounds  the  vaulted  iky. 

Their  vizors  clos'd,  their  lances  in  the  rest, 

Or  at  the  helmet  pointed,  or  the  crest, 

They  vanish  from  the  barrier,  speed  the  race, 

And  spurring  see  decrease  the  middle  space. 

A  cloud  of  smoke  envelops  either  host, 

And  all  at  once  the  combatants  are  lost : 

Darkling  they  join  adverse,  and  shock  unseen, 

Coursers  with  coursers  justling,  men  with  men; 


216  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

As  laboring  in  eclipse,  a  while  they  stay, 
Till  the  next  blast  of  wind  restores  the  day. 
They  look  anew;  the  beauteous  form  of  fight 
Is  chang'd,  and  war  appears  a  grisly  sight. 
Two  troops  in  fair  array  one  moment  show'd, 
The  next,  a  field  with  fallen  bodies  strow'd: 
Not  half  the  number  in  their  seats  are  found; 
But  men  and  steeds  lie  grov'ling  on  the  ground. 
The  points  of  spears  are  stuck  within  the  shield, 
The  steeds  without  their  riders  scour  the  field. 
The  knights,  unhors'd,  on  foot  renew  the  fight; 
The  glitt'ring  fauchions  cast  a  gleaming  light: 
Hauberks  and  helms  are  hew'd  with  many  a  wound  ; 
Out  spins  the  streaming  blood,  and  dyes  the  ground. 

Pope  followed  Dryden  as  Dryden  had  followed 
Waller,  continuing  and  developing  the  tendencies  which 
are  visible  in  the  verse  of  these  immediate  predeces- 
sors. He  lacked  the  bold  imagination  of  Dryden,  but 
he  was  a  more  meticulous  artist.  There  was  often  a 
large  affluence  about  Dryden,  whereas  Pope  was 
rather  a  miser  than  a  spendthrift.  He  was  always  a 
deliberate  and  conscientious  craftsman  in  verse,  with  a 
code  of  his  own  to  which  he  conformed  at  whatever  cost 
of  toil.  He  relied  on  antithesis  for  much  of  his  rhetor- 
ical effect ;  indeed,  the  suggestion  might  be  ventured 
that  he  is  rather  a  rhetorician  in  rime  than  a  true 
poet.  He  preached  what  he  practised  ;  and  the  formula 
of  the  heroic  couplet  as  he  had  perfected  it  was  free 
to  all  who  came  after.  His  method  was  so  easily  ac- 
quired that  almost  anybody  could  set  up  for  a  poet, 
who  accepted  Pope's  rules  and  trod  in  Pope's  own 
footsteps  ;  and  thus  in  time  the  iambic  pentameter  it- 
self was  emptied  of  its  vitality  by  dint  of  uninspired 
imitation,  until  Lowell  was  justified  in  his  assertion 
that  "  the  measure  is  so  facile  that  one  soon  loses  one's 


THE  COUPLET  217 

sense  of  the  difference  between  what  sounds  like  some- 
thing and  what  really  is  something." 

In  his  versified  "  Essay  on  Criticism,"  Pope  laid 
down  the  law  by  which  he  wished  to  be  judged.  Here  is 
one  of  the  cleverest  and  most  characteristic  passages 
in  which  he  adroitly  exemplifies  the  doctrine  he  is  de- 
claring :  — 

But  most  by  Numbers  judge  a  poet's  song, 

And  smooth  or  rough  with  them  is  right  or  wrong. 

In  the  bright  Muse  tho'  thousand  charms  conspire, 

Her  voice  is  all  these  tuneful  fools  admire; 

Who  haunt  Parnassus  but  to  please  their  ear, 

Not  mend  their  minds;  as  some  to  church  repair, 

Not  for  the  doctrine,  but  the  music  there. 

These  equal  syllables  alone  require, 

Tho'  oft  the  ear  the  open  vowels  tire, 

While  expletives  their  feeble  aid  do  join, 

And  ten  low  words  oft  creep  in  one  dull  line: 

While  they  ring  round  the  same  unvaried  chimes, 

With  sure  returns  of  still  expected  rimes; 

Where'er  you  find  "  the  cooling  western  breeze," 

In  the  next  line,  it  "  whispers  thro'  the  trees  "  ; 

If  crystal  streams  "  with  pleasing  murmurs  creep," 

The  reader  's  threaten'd  (not  in  vain)  with  "  sleep  "  ; 

Then,  at  the  last  and  only  couplet,  fraught 

With  some  unmeaning  thing  they  call  a  thought, 

A  needless  Alexandrine  ends  the  song, 

That,  like  a  wounded  snake,  drags  its  slow  length  along. 

Leave  such  to  tune  their  own  dull  rimes,  and  know 

What 's  roundly  smooth,  or  languishingly  slow; 

And  praise  the  easy  vigor  of  a  line, 

Where  Denham's  strength  and  Waller's  sweetness  join. 

True  ease  in  writing  comes  from  art,  not  chance, 

As  those  move  easiest  who  have  learn'd  to  dance. 

'T  is  not  enough  no  harshness  gives  offence, 

The  sound  must  seem  an  echo  to  the  sense. 

Soft  is  the  strain  when  zephyr  gently  blows, 

And  the  smooth  stream  in  smoother  numbers  flows; 

But  when  loud  surges  lash  the  sounding  shore, 

The  hoarse  rough  verse  should  like  the  torrent  roar ; 


218  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

When  Ajax  strives  some  rock's  vast  weight  to  throw, 

The  line,  too,  labors,  and  the  words  move  slow. 

Not  so,  when  swift  Camilla  scours  the  plain, 

Flies  o'er  the  unbending  corn,  and  skims  along  the  main. 

Hear  how  Timotheus'  varied  lays  surprise, 

And  bid  alternate  passions  fall  and  rise  ! 

And  in  one  of  his  "  Imitations  of  Horace,"  Pope  de- 
scribed the  refining  of  English  poetry  as  he  under- 
stood it :  — 

We  conquer'd  France,  but  felt  our  captive's  charms, 

Her  arts  victorious  triumph'd  o'er, our  arms  ; 

Britain  to  soft  refinements  less  a  foe, 

Wit  grew  polite,  and  numbers  learn'd  to  flow. 

Waller  was  smooth  ;  but  Dryden  taught  to  join 

The  varying  verse,  the  full  resounding  line, 

The  long  majestic  march,  and  energy  divine  : 

Tho'  still  some  traces  of  our  rustic  vein 

And  splay-foot  verse  remain'd,  and  will  remain. 

Late,  very  late,  correctness  grew  our  care, 

When  the  tir'd  nation  breath'd  from  civil  war. 

Exact  Racine,  and  Corneille's  noble  fire 

Show'd  us  that  France  had  something  to  admire. 

Not  but  the  tragic  spirit  was  our  own, 

And  full  in  Shaksper e,  fair  in  Otway,  shone ; 

But  Otway  fail'd  to  polish  or  refine, 

And  fluent  Shakspere  scarce  effac'd  a  line. 

Ev'n  copious  Dryden  wanted,  or  forgot, 

The  last  and  greatest  art,  the  art  to  blot. 

Admirably  adapted  as  Pope's  methods  may  be  for 
satire  and  for  epigram,  they  are  wholly  unfitted  to 
render  the  largeness  of  Homer,  the  simplicity  and  the 
nobility  of  his  bold  manner.  Matthew  Arnold  in  his 
lectures  "  On  Translating  Homer  "  quoted  a  passage 
from  Pope's  version :  — 

Could  all  our  care  elude  the  gloomy  grave 
Which  claims  no  less  the  fearful  than  the  brave, 
For  lust  of  fame  I  should  not  vainly  dare 
In  fighting  fields,  nor  urge  thy  soul  to  war  : 


THE  COUPLET  219 

But  since,  alas  !  ignoble  age  must  come, 
Disease,  and  death's  inexorable  doom  ; 
The  life  which  others  pay,  let  us  bestow, 
And  give  to  fame,  what  we  to  nature  owe. 

And  on  this  Arnold  made  the  pertinent  comment 
that  "  nothing  could  better  exhibit  Pope's  prodigious 
talent ;  and  nothing,  too,  could  be  better  in  its  own 
way.  But,  as  Bentley  said,  '  You  must  not  call  it 
Homer.'  One  feels  that  Homer's  thought  has  passed 
through  a  literary  and  rhetorical  crucible,  and  come 
out  highly  intellectualized ;  come  out  in  a  form  which 
strongly  impresses  us,  indeed,  but  which  no  longer 
impresses  us  in  the  same  way  as  when  it  was  uttered 
by  Homer.  The  antithesis  of  the  last  two  lines  — 

The  life  which  others  pay,  let  us  bestow, 
And  give  to  fame,  what  we  to  nature  owe  — 

is  excellent,  and  is  just  suited  to  Pope's  heroic  couplet ; 
but  neither  the  antithesis  itself,  nor  the  couplet  which 
conveys  it,  is  suited  to  the  feeling  or  to  the  move- 
ment of  the  Homeric  ?o/tev." 

Arnold  objected  to  Pope's  parade  of  antithesis  to 
break  up  the  natural  movement  of  Homer's  narration. 
Antithesis,  symmetry,  balance,  Pope  employed  to  give 
immediate  point  to  his  lines.  This  trick  of  style  is  the 
most  obvious  of  Pope's  mannerisms.  Leigh  Hunt 
quoted  a  passage  from  "  The  Rape  of  the  Lock,"  divid- 
ing every  line  in  two  by  a  dash  to  call  attention  to  the 
wilful  and  persistent  setting  off  of  one  half  of  a  line 
against  the  other  :  — 

On  her  white  breast  —  a  sparkling  cross  she  wore, 
Which  Jews  might  kiss  —  and  infidels  adore. 
Her  lively  looks  —  a  sprightly  mind  disclose, 
Quick  as  her  eyas, —  and  as  unfix'd  as  those  : 


220  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Favors  to  none,  —  to  all  she  smiles  extends  ; 
Oft  she  rejects,  —  but  never  once  offends. 
Bright  as  the  sun,  —  her  eyes  the  gazers  strike, 
And,  like  the  sun,  — they  shine  on  all  alike. 
Yet,  graceful  ease,  —  and  sweetness  void  of  pride, 
Might  hide  her  faults,  —  if  Belles  had  faults  to  hide  : 
If  to  her  share  —  some  female  errors  fall, 
Look  on  her  face,  —  and  you'll  forget  'em  all. 

"  The  reader  will  observe,"  Leigh  Hunt  remarked, 
"  that  it  is  literally  see-saw,  like  the  rising  and  the 
falling  of  a  plank,  with  a  light  person  at  one  end  who 
is  jerked  up  in  the  briefer  time,  and  a  heavier  one 
who  is  set  down  more  leisurely  at  the  other."  Here 
Hunt  has  caught  Pope  in  flagrant  violation  of  his 
own  theory,  as  the  author  of  "  The  Kape  of  the  Lock  " 
once  wrote  a  letter  in  which  he  asserted  that  "  every 
nice  ear  must,  I  believe,  have  observed  that  in  any 
smooth  English  verse  of  ten  syllables,  there  is  natu- 
rally a  pause  either  at  the  fourth,  fifth,  or  sixth  syl- 
lable," and  he  added  that  "  to  preserve  an  exact 
harmony  and  variety  none  of  these  pauses  should  be 
continued  above  three  lines  together,  without  the  in- 
terposition of  another,  else  it  will  be  apt  to  weary  the 
ear  with  one  continual  tone."  But  even  if  this  break 
in  the  line  is  not  continuously  after  the  fourth  syllable, 
as  it  is  in  the  passage  Leigh  Hunt  cited,  even  if  it  is 
sometimes  after  the  fifth  and  sometimes  after  the  sixth, 
even  this  limitation  becomes  monotonous  in  time  and 
tends  to  reduce  the  rhythm  to  a  mechanical  tick-tack. 

Scott  pointed  out  another  occasional  weakness  in 
the  heroic  couplet  as  Pope  wrote  it,  —  the  use  of  need- 
less adjectives  merely  to  fill  out  the  five  feet.  Scott 
was  defending  his  own  preference  for  the  tetrameter, 
and  he  quoted  the  opening  lines  of  Pope's  "  Iliad," 


THE  COUPLET  221 

italicizing  the  adjectives  which  seemed  to  him  need- 
less :  — 

Achilles'  wrath,  to  Greece  the  direful  spring 
Of  woes  unnumberM,  heav'nly  goddess,  sing  ! 
That  wrath  which  hurl'd  to  Pluto's  gloomy  reign 
The  souls  of  mighty  chiefs  untimely  slain  : 
Whose  limbs,  unburied  on  the  naked  shore, 
Devouring  dogs  and  hungry  vultures  tore. 

Scott  said  that  "  since  it  is  true  that  by  throwing 
out  the  epithets  underscored,  we  preserve  the  sense 
without  diminishing  the  force  of  the  verses,  and  since 
it  is  also  true  that  scarcely  one  of  the  epithets  are 
more  than  merely  expletive,  I  do  really  think  that 
the  structure  of  verse  which  requires  least  of  this 
sort  of  bolstering,  is  most  likely  to  be  forcible  and 
animated." 

While  Goldsmith  inherited  the  heroic  couplet  from 
Pope  and  from  the  clouds  of  imitators  who  encom- 
passed Pope  about,  he  had  more  feeling  than  his  witty 
predecessor  ;  he  was  less  obviously  clever ;  he  was  gen- 
tler and  more  human ;  and  as  a  result  he  modified  the 
meter  to  suit  his  own  needs.  There  is  less  striking 
antithesis ;  and  the  lines  break  with  less  monotony. 
There  are  fewer  expletive  adjectives  thrust  in  to  fill 
out  the  line.  The  couplet  is  still  the  unit  of  struc- 
ture ;  and  yet  the  narrative  has  a  less  jerky  movement. 
Here  is  a  passage  from  "The  Deserted  Village":  — 

Near  yonder  copse,  where  once  the  garden  smiled, 
And  still  where  many  a  garden  flower  grows  wild, 
There,  where  a  few  torn  shrubs  the  place  disclose, 
The  village  preacher's  modest  mansion  rose. 
A  man  he  was  to  all  the  country  dear, 
And  passing  rich  with  forty  pounds  a  year  ; 
Remote  from  towns  he  ran  his  godly  race, 
Nor  e'er  had  changed,  nor  wished  to  change  his  place  ; 


222  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Unpractised  he  to  fawn,  or  seek  for  power, 

By  doctrines  fashioned  to  the  varying  hour  ; 

Far  other  aims  his  heart  had  learned  to  prize, 

More  skilled  to  raise  the  wretched  than  to  rise. 

His  house  was  known  to  all  the  vagrant  train, 

He  chid  their  wanderings,  but  relieved  their  pain  ; 

The  long-remembered  beggar  was  his  guest, 

Whose  beard  descending  swept  his  aged  breast ; 

The  ruined  spendthrift,  now  no  longer  proud, 

Claimed  kindred  there,  and  had  his  claims  allowed  ; 

The  broken  soldier,  kindly  bade  to  stay, 

Sate  by  his  fire,  and  talked  the  night  away  ; 

Wept  o'er  his  wounds,  or,  tales  of  sorrow  done, 

Shouldered  his  crutch,  and  showed  how  fields  were  wou- 

The  heroic  couplet  was  employed  by  Johnson  and 
by  Byron  in  their  satires ;  and  they  were  content  to 
leave  it  as  they  found  it.  Even  Cowper,  although  he 
was  no  slavish  follower  of  Pope,  did  not  impress  his 
individuality  on  the  iambic  pentameter.  After  Gold- 
smith the  next  poet  to  handle  it  with  any  freedom 
was  Leigh  Hunt,  who  blazed  the  trail  for  Keats  and 
Shelley.  In  his  "  Story  of  Rimini "  there  is  an  abandon- 
ment of  Pope's  couplet-structure  with  its  epigram- 
matic flavor  and  with  its  monotony  of  strict  iambics. 
The  rhythm  is  more  fluid  and  the  narrative  runs  over 
from  line  to  line.  The  thought  is  no  longer  diked 
between  two  rimes.  There  is  again  a  sense  of  freedom 
and  of  spontaneity,  due  partly  to  the  avoidance  of  the 
self-conscious  ingenuity  of  Pope :  — 

But  'twixt  the  wood  and  flowery  walks,  half-way, 
And  formed  of  both,  the  loveliest  portion  lay,  — 
A  spot,  that  struck  you  like  enchanted  ground  ;  — 
It  was  a  shallow  dell,  set  in  a  mound 
Of  sloping  orchards,  —  fig,  and  almond  trees, 
Cherry  and  pine,  with  some  few  cypresses  ; 
Down  by  whose  roots,  descending  darkly  still 
(You  saw  it  not,  but  heard),  there  gushed  a  rill, 


THE  COUPLET  223 

Whose  low  sweet  talking  seemed  as  if  it  said, 
Something  eternal  to  that  happy  shade. 

This  harks  back  to  Chaucer  and  points  forward  to 
Keats,  in  whose  hands  the  iambic  pentameter  was  to 
reveal  itself  again  as  a  fit  and  flexible  instrument  for 
a  true  poet.  Keats  claimed  the  liberty  of  occasional 
double  rimes,  which  helped  him  to  avoid  the  tempta- 
tion to  end  a  majority  of  lines  with  bold  monosylla- 
bles. He  shifted  the  place  of  his  pauses  in  the  middle 
of  his  lines  with  exquisite  skill,  varying  the  movement 
to  mate  with  his  sentiment.  Perhaps  the  passage  that 
best  exemplifies  this  new  ease  of  the  iambic  penta- 
meter is  the  well-known  description  of  beauty,  in 
"  Endymion  "  :  — 

A  thing  of  beauty  is  a  joy  forever  : 

Its  loveliness  increases  ;  it  will  never 

Pass  into  nothingness  ;  but  still  will  keep 

A  bower  quiet  for  us,  and  a  sleep 

Full  of  sweet  dreams,  and  health,  and  quiet  breathing. 

Therefore,  on  every  morrow,  are  we  wreathing 

A  flowery  band  to  bind  us  to  the  earth, 

Spite  of  despondence,  of  the  inhuman  dearth 

Of  noble  natures,  of  the  gloomy  days, 

Of  all  the  unhealthy  and  o'er-darken'd  ways 

Made  for  our  searching  :  yes,  in  spite  of  all, 

Some  shape  of  beauty  moves  away  the  pall 

From  our  dark  spirits.  Such  the  sun,  the  moon, 

Trees  old  and  young,  sprouting  a  shady  boon 

For  simple  sheep  ;  and  such  are  daffodils 

With  the  green  world  they  live  in  ;  and  clear  rills 

That  for  themselves  a  cooling  covert  make 

'Gainst  the  hot  season  ;  the  mid-forest  brake, 

Rich  with  a  sprinkling  of  fair  musk-rose  blooms  J 

And  such  too  is  the  grandeur  of  the  dooms 

We  have  imagined  for  the  mighty  dead  ; 

All  lovely  tales  that  we  have  heard  or  read  : 

An  endless  fountain  of  immortal  drink, 

Pouring  unto  us  from  the  heaveu's  brink. 


224  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Shelley  used  this  meter  with  similar  ease ;  and  the 
rigidity  of  the  heroic  couplet  disappeared.  The  way 
was  now  made  straight  for  the  poets  who  were  to  come 
after.  Browning  found  the  iambic  pentameter  avail- 
able for  the  narrative  of  "  Sordello " ;  Swinburne 
employed  it  with  large  luxuriance  in  "  Tristram  of 
Lyonesse  "  ;  and  Morris  took  it  to  tell  the  "  Life  and 
Death  of  Jason." 


CHAPTER  XI 

BLANK   VERSE 

That  which  is  the  glory  of  blank  verse,  as  a  vehicle  of  poetry,  is 
also  its  danger  and  its  difficulty.  Its  freedom  from  the  fetters  of 
rime,  the  infinite  variability  of  the  metrical  structure  of  its  lines,  the 
absence  of  couplets  and  stanzas,  —  all  assimilate  it  to  prose.  It  is  the 
easiest  of  all  conceivable  meters  to  write ;  it  is  the  hardest  to  write 
well.  Its  metrical  requirements  are  next  to  nothing ;  its  poetical  re- 
quirements are  infinite.  It  was  Byron,  I  believe,  who  remarked,  that 
it  differed  from  other  meters  in  this,  that  whereas  they  required  a  cer- 
tain proportion  of  lines,  some  more,  some  less,  to  be  good,  in  blank 
verse,  every  line  must  be  good.  —  SHADWOKTH  H.  HODGSON  :  English 
Verse. 

BLANK  verse,  the  unrimed  iambic  pentameter,  is  the 
most  characteristic  and  the  most  individual  meter  of 
English  poetry.  It  has  shown  itself  to  be  the  best  in- 
strument for  the  expression  of  the  essential  energy  of 
the  English-speaking  peoples  in  their  loftiest  flights 
of  imagination.  It  is  a  nobler  vehicle  for  the  epic  and 
for  the  tragic  than  the  Alexandrine  of  the  French 
encumbered  as  that  is  with  its  pairs  of  rimes,  al- 
ternately masculine  and  feminine.  It  has  proved  it- 
self a  worthy  rival  of  the  supple  and  sonorous  hex- 
ameter of  the  Greeks.  It  has  a  definite  firmness  of 
structure  and,  at  the  same  time,  an  infinite  variety 
within  this  framework.  It  can  be  swift,  simple,  and 
direct ;  or  it  may  be  elaborate  and  luxuriant.  It  lends 
itself  to  all  moods,  and  it  is  adequate  for  every  kind 
of  poetry.  It  can  tell  a  story ;  it  can  voice  a  purely 
lyric  sentiment ;  it  can  convey  at  will  the  interprets 


226  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

tive  description  of  external  nature  or  the  subtlest 
revelation  of  human  psychology.  It  can  serve  alike 
for  the  witty  banter  of  light  comedy  and  for  the  soul- 
stirring  depths  of  inexorable  tragedy.  It  demands 
that  the  poet  who  essays  it  shall  always  put  forth  his 
topmost  power  and  that  he  shall  always  do  the  best  that 
is  in  him.  With  no  support  from  any  stanza  and  with 
no  assistance  or  suggestion  from  rime,  it  may  seem 
easy ;  but  it  is  an  instrument  to  be  handled  worthily 
only  by  a  master.  It  has  a  large  freedom  wherein  a 
man  adventures  himself  only  at  his  peril.  "  In  hear- 
ing good  blank  verse,"  so  Symonds  declared,  "  we  do 
not  long  for  rime,  our  ears  are  satisfied  without  it ; 
nor  does  our  sense  of  order  and  proportion  require 
the  obvious  and  artificial  recurrence  of  stanzas,  when 
the  sense  creates  for  itself  a  melodious  structure 
and  is  not  forced  into  the  mold  of  any  arbitrary 
form." 

In  the  history  of  English  poetry,  blank  verse  devel- 
oped later  than  the  heroic  couplet,  which  it  was  to  suc- 
ceed as  the  supreme  implement  of  the  English  poets, 
only  in  its  turn  to  be  superseded  for  a  while  under  the 
influence  of  Dryden  and  Pope.  Blank  verse  came  into 
its  own  slowly,  influenced  at  first  by  the  tradition  of 
the  heroic  couplet.  In  its  turn,  it  influenced  the  heroic 
couplet;  and  if  rimed  pentameter  was  able  in  the 
nineteenth  century  to  recapture  the  larger  liberty  it 
had  earlier  enjoyed,  this  was  due  mainly  to  the  inspir- 
ing example  of  blank  verse.  The  rimed  pentameter 
and  the  unrimed  pentameter  have  existed  side  by 
side  for  now  three  centuries  and  more,  rivals  for  the 
favor  of  the  poets,  each  in  turn  borrowing  from  the 
other.  The  heroic  couplet  has  been  dealt  with  first, 


BLANK  VERSE  227 

as  the  elder ;  and  blank  verse  in  turn  demands  the  same 
chronological  consideration,  since  it  is  only  by  following 
it  through  its  development  that  we  are  able  to  possess 
ourselves  of  its  essential  principles  and  to  discover  its 
immense  variety  as  its  many  possibilities  were  perceived 
by  the  poets  of  our  language,  generation  after  genera- 
tion. 

Apparently  Surrey,  in  his  translation  of  part  of  the 
"jSSneid,"  was  the  first  to  write  the  unrimed  iambic 
pentameter  which  came  later  to  be  known  as  blank 
verse.  And  by  a  happy  chance  the  meter  was  taken 
over  by  Sackville  and  Norton  for  their  tragedy  "  Gor- 
boduc."  The  motive  of  their  choice  was  probably  three- 
fold :  first,  they  wanted  a  more  dignified  meter  than 
the  rimed  iambic  heptameter  (ballad-meter),  which  had 
been  generally  employed  in  the  unpretending  folk- 
drama;  second,  they  wished  to  avoid  rime  altogether, 
since  that  had  been  unknown  to  the  Latin  and  Greek 
dramatists  whom  they  supposed  themselves  to  be  imi- 
tating and  emulating ;  and  thirdly,  they  were  seeking 
a  meter  which  would  allow  them  more  easily  to  attain 
the  concise  sententiousness  which  they  admired  in  the 
tragedies  of  Seneca,  written  rather  for  recitation  than 
for  actual  performance.  Probably  this  last  motive  was 
the  strongest  of  the  three ;  and  its  influence  is  most 
obvious  in  their  blank  verse,  which  tends  to  the  stiff- 
ness of  rhetoric  and  to  the  compacting  of  the  thought 
within  a  single  swelling  line  or  at  most  within  a  pair 
of  lines. 

The  blank  verse  of  "  Gorboduc  "  has  prim  regularity ; 
it  consists  of  a  sequence  of  iambics  in  close  accord  with 
the  exact  pattern ;  it  rarely  ventures  on  any  substitu- 
tion of  a  trochee  for  an  iambus,  even  in  the  first  foot; 


228  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

it  seldom  permits  itself  an  unaccented  extra  syllable  at 
the  end  of  the  line ;  it  hesitates  to  allow  the  thought 
to  run  over  from  one  line  halfway  into  the  next.  As  a 
result  of  these  self-imposed  limitations  the  blank  verse 
of  "  Gorboduc  "  lacks  melody  and  variety ;  it  is  charac- 
terized by  a  chill  monotony ;  it  seems  eminently  unin- 
spired. But  it  was  incisive  at  times,  and  emphatic ;  it 
lent  itself  to  declamatory  rhetoric ;  it  was  not  unsuited 
to  the  purpose  in  hand ;  and  it  gave  the  English  drama 
a  meter  which  later  poets,  more  adroit  and  more  gifted, 
were  able  to  bend  to  their  bidding.  Here,  for  example, 
is  part  of  a  speech  in  the  fifth  act  of  "  Gorboduc  "  :  — 

Lo,  here  the  end  of  Brutus'  royal  line, 

And  lo,  the  entry  to  the  woful  wreck 

And  utter  ruin  of  this  noble  realm  ! 

The  royal  king  and  eke  his  sons  are  slain; 

No  ruler  rests  within  the  regal  seat; 

The  heir,  to  whom  the  scepter  'longs,  unknown  ; 

That  to  each  force  of  foreign  prince's  power 

Whom  vantage  of  our  wretched  state  may  move, 

By  sudden  arms  to  gain  as  rich  a  realm. 

And  to  the  proud  and  greedy  mind  at  home 

Whom  blended  lust  to  reign  leads  to  aspire, 

Lo,  Britain  realm  is  left  an  open  prey, 

A  present  spoil  for  conquest  to  ensue. 

In  this  the  single  line  is  plainly  the  unit  of  construc- 
tion ;  and  the  passage  as  a  whole  is  built  up  by  succes- 
sive lines  most  of  which  are  end-stopt, — that  is,  com- 
plete in  themselves.  The  phrase  does  not  run  on  or  run 
over,  line  after  line.  The  unity  is  only  that  of  a  series 
of  drawers,  each  with  its  own  content.  There  is  nothing 
organic  in  a  passage  of  this  sort;  it  is  fragmentary 
and  lacking  in  any  large  movement.  Yet  it  served  as 
a  texture  for  the  more  richly  endowed  Marlowe  to  em» 
broider  at  will. 


BLANK  VERSE  229 

In  Marlowe's  blank  verse  there  is  more  ease  and 
flexibility.  The  pause  in  the  middle  of  the  line  is 
shifted,  now  here  and  now  there,  thus  avoiding 
monotony.  Trochees  are  substituted  for  iambs,  more 
often  in  the  first  foot,  but  sometimes  elsewhere  in  the 
line.  Feminine  endings  appear  occasionally,  relieving 
the  end  of  the  lines  from  rigidity.  The  thought  is  no 
longer  clamped  into  the  single  line ;  or  at  least  the 
phrase  is  no  longer  absolutely  coincident  with  the 
line.  There  is  an  obvious  unity  in  the  larger  passages, 
and  a  sweeping  movement  that  rolls  forward,  wave 
after  wave.  Here  is  the  famous  speech  of  Faustus 
when  Mephistopheles  has  granted  his  wish  to  behold 
Helen  of  Troy  :  — 

Was  this  the  face  that  launch'd  a  thousand  ships, 
And  burnt  the  topless  towers  of  Ilium  ?  — 
Sweet  Helen,  make  me  immortal  with  a  kiss, — 
Her  lips  suck  forth  my  soul:  see,  where  it  flees  1  — 
Come,  Helen,  come,  give  me  my  soul  again. 
Here  will  I  dwell,  for  heaven  is  in  these  lips, 
And  all  is  dross  that  is  not  Helena. 
I  will  be  Paris,  and  for  love  of  thee, 
Instead  of  Troy,  shall  Wittenberg  be  sack'd; 
And  I  will  combat  with  weak  Menelaus, 
And  wear  thy  colours  on  my  plumed  crest; 
Yes,  I  will  wound  Achilles  in  the  heel, 
And  then  return  to  Helen  for  a  kiss. 
O,  thou  art  fairer  than  the  evening  air 
Clad  in  the  beauty  of  a  thousand  stars; 
Brighter  art  thou  than  flaming  Jupiter 
When  he  appear'd  to  hapless  Semele; 
More  lovely  than  the  monarch  of  the  sky 
In  wanton  Arethusa's  azur'd  arms; 
And  none  but  thou  shalt  be  my  paramour  ! 

And  here  is  the  opening  of  the  soliloquy  of  Faustus 
when  he  faces  his  doom :  — 


230  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Ah,  Faustus, 

Now  them  hast  but  one  bare  hour  to  live, 

And  then  thou  must  be  damu'd  perpetually  ! 

Stand  still,  you  ever-moving  spheres  of  heaven, 

That  time  may  cease,  and  midnight  never  come; 

Fair  Nature's  eye,  rise,  rise  again  and  make 

Perpetual  day  ;  or  let  this  hour  be  but 

A  year,  a  month,  a  week,  a  natural  day, 

That  Faustus  may  repent  and  save  his  soul  ! 

O  lente,  lente  currite,  noctis  equi ! 

The  stars  move  still,  time  runs,  the  clock  will  strike, 

The  devil  will  come,  and  Faustus  must  be  damn'd. 

It  was  due  to  the  example  of  Marlowe  that  blank 
verse  was  accepted  as  the  standard  instrument  for  the 
English  poetic  drama ;  and  the  value  of  this  accept- 
ance can  scarcely  be  overstated.  Symonds  was  not 
exaggerating  when  he  asserted  that  "  Marlowe  did  not 
merely  drive  the  rimed  couplet  from  the  stage  by 
substituting  the  blank  verse  of  his  contemporaries ;  he 
created  a  new  meter  by  the  melody,  variety  and  force 
which  he  infused  into  the  iambic,  and  left  models  of 
versification,  the  pomp  of  which  Shakspere  and 
Milton  alone  can  be  said  to  have  surpassed.  .  .  .  He 
found  the  ten-syllabled  heroic  line  monotonous,  mono- 
syllabic and  divided  into  five  feet  of  tolerably  regular 
short  and  long.  He  left  it  various  in  form  and 
structure,  sometimes  redundant  by  a  syllable,  some- 
times deficient,  enriched  with  unexpected  emphasis 
and  changes  in  the  beat.  He  found  no  sequence  or 
attempt  at  periods ;  one  line  succeeded  another  with 
insipid  regularity,  and  all  were  made  after  the  same 
model.  He  grouped  his  verse  according  to  the  sense, 
obeying  an  internal  law  of  melody,  and  allowing  the 
thought  contained  in  his  words  to  dominate  their 
form.  He  did  not  force  his  meter  to  preserve  a  fixed 


BLANK  VERSE  231 

and  unalterable  type,  but  suffered  it  to  assume  most 
variable  modulations,  the  whole  beauty  of  which  de- 
pended upon  their  perfect  adaptation  to  the  current 
of  his  ideas.  By  these  means  he  was  able  to  produce 
the  double  effect  of  variety  and  unity,  to  preserve  the 
fixed  march  of  his  chosen  meter,  and  yet,  by  subtle 
alterations  in  the  pauses,  speed  and  grouping  of  the 
syllables  to  make  one  measure  represent  a  thousand." 
Marlowe  gave  blank  verse  ease  and  force,  especially 
force.  His  lesser  contemporaries  Greene  and  Peele 
bestowed  on  it  a  gentleness  and  a  sweetness  which 
Marlowe  had  not  sought.  Here  is  a  specimen  of 
Greene's  easy-running  lines,  a  speech  of  Margaret  in 
"  Friar  Bacon  and  Friar  Bun  gay  "  :  — 

Ah,  father,  when  the  harmony  of  heaven 
Soundeth  the  measures  of  a  lively  faith, 
The  vain  illusions  of  this  flattering  world 
Seem  odious  to  the  thoughts  of  Margaret. 
I  loved  once,  —  Lord  Lacy  was  my  love; 
And  now  I  hate  myself  for  that  I  lov'd, 
And  doted  more  on  him  than  on  my  God,  — 
For  this  I  scourge  myself  with  sharp  repents. 
But  now  the  touch  of  such  aspiring  sins 
Tells  me  all  love  is  lust  but  love  of  heaven; 
That  beauty  us'd  for  love  is  vanity; 
The  world  contains  naught  but  alluring  baits, 
Pride,  flattery,  and  inconstant  thoughts. 
To  shun  the  pricks  of  death,  I  leave  the  world 
And  vow  to  meditate  on  heavenly  bliss, 
To  live  in  Framlingham  a  holy  nun, 
Holy  and  pure  in  conscience  and  in  deed; 
And  for  to  wish  all  maids  to  learn  of  me 
To  seek  heaven's  joy  before  earth's  vanity. 

Shakspere  learned  much  from  Marlowe,  and  even 
from  Peele  and  Greene;  but  he  bettered  his  lesson. 
He  made  himself  master  of  blank  verse  in  all  its  pos- 


232  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

sibilities.  He  used  it  for  tragedy  and  for  comedy,  foi 
description,  for  sentiment,  and  for  pathos.  But  he 
did  not  tie  himself  down  to  it.  Nothing  is  more 
characteristic  of  Shakspere's  dramatic  instinct  than 
his  use  or  avoidance  of  blank  verse.  He  held  himself 
at  liberty  to  employ  whatever  metrical  device  best 
suited  his  immediate  purpose.  He  unhesitatingly  com- 
mingled prose  and  blank  verse  and  rime.  In  his 
earlier  plays,  both  comic  and  tragic,  there  is  a  large 
proportion  of  riming  couplets ;  and  on  occasion,  he 
even  made  use  of  quatrains  and  other  stanzaic  forms 
which  he  felt  to  be  appropriate  to  the  more  or  less 
artificial  sentiment  he  was  voicing.  In  his  later  plays, 
when  he  had  ceased  to  be  artificial,  he  abandoned 
rime,  but  even  then  he  frequently  dropped  into  prose 
when  he  felt  intuitively  that  prose  was  a  better 
implement. 

It  was  only  by  degrees  that  Shakspere  arrived  at 
his  full  mastery  of  blank  verse.  At  first,  we  find  him 
restrained  by  the  tradition  of  the  less  gifted  poets  in 
whose  footsteps  he  was  then  treading.  Many  of  his 
lines  are  end-stopt ;  —  that  is  to  say,  the  thought  is 
completely  expressed  within  the  line.  The  longer 
speeches  may  often  be  described  as  built  up  of  a  se- 
quence of  single  lines  each  complete  in  itself.  There 
are  few  dropt  syllables,  such  as  we  find  in  the  later 
plays,  where  the  place  of  a  missing  word  may  be  filled 
out  by  a  pause  in  the  dialog.  There  are  few  feminine 
endings ;  indeed,  Shakspere  was  a  little  slow  in  perceiv- 
ing the  value  of  an  added  unaccented  eleventh  syllable 
at  the  end  of  a  line  to  give  fluidity  to  a  speech.  But  even 
early  in  his  development  as  a  dramatist  and  as  a  poet, 
we  cannot  fail  to  find  a  nice  adjustment  of  the  meter 


BLANK  VERSE  233 

to  the  character  and  to  the  situation.  "  Romeo  and 
Juliet "  is  a  comparatively  early  play ;  and  Professor 
Saints  bury  has  called  attention  to  its  "  curious  alter- 
nation, or  rather  intermixture,  of  the  cumulative  and 
the  periodic  styles  of  blank  verse."  The  stately  speech 
of  the  Prince  after  the  opening  brawl,  the  longer  ut- 
terances of  Friar  Laurence,  are  periodic.  "  But 
Juliet's  heart  beats  throughout  to  another  tune  than 
their  sententious  clank ;  her  lover,  though  less  uni- 
formly, is  master  of  the  better  rhythm  also ;  and 
Mercutio  shows  that  fancy  can  act  as  the  solvent  no 
less  than  passion." 

The  same  critic  has  also  called  attention  to  the  great 
patriotic  speech  of  Gaunt  in  "  Richard  II  "  :  — 

This  royal  throne  of  kings,  this  scepter'd  isle, 
This  earth  of  majesty,  this  seat  of  Mars, 

and  he  has  pointed  out  how  it  is  that "  although  almost 
every  line  is  self -enclosed,  the  paragraph-effect  is 
given  in  a  way  Marlowe  hardly  ever  attains,  by  the 
variation  of  the  pause,  the  weighting  of  different  parts 
of  the  line  by  the  quicksilver  power  of  specially  sono- 
rous or  important  words,  and  sometimes  by  a  cunning 
parenthetic  device,  which  makes  the  voice  hurry  over 
parts  of  a  line,  or  whole  lines,  so  as  to  connect  rhyth- 
mically as  in  sense,  what  comes  after  with  what  comes 
before."  The  great  agency  in  giving  variety  to  Shak- 
spere's  blank  verse  is  the  shifting  of  the  pause,  which 
his  predecessors  (Marlowe  chiefly  excepted)  tended  to 
retain  more  or  less  in  the  middle  of  the  line.  Another 
agency,  almost  equally  effective  in  the  avoidance  of 
rigidity,  is  the  separation  of  the  phrase  from  the  exact 
line  or  sequence  of  lines ;  the  thought  is  no  longer 
contained  in  a  series  of  drawers ;  it  may  begin  in  the 


234  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

middle  of  one  line,  flow  on  through  two  or  three  ot 
more,  and  end  at  last  in  the  middle  of  yet  another,  with- 
out departing  in  the  least  from  the  normal  decasyllabic 
division. 

Perhaps  no  better  example  can  be  quoted  to  exhibit 
the  infinite  modulation  of  which  dramatic  blank  verse 
is  capable  in  Shakspere's  hands,  after  he  made  him- 
self absolute  master  of  his  instrument,  than  a  speech 
of  Prospero's  in  the  "  Tempest "  (which  we  know  to 
be  one  of  his  very  latest  plays)  :  — 

Our  revels  now  are  ended.  These  our  actors, 
As  I  foretold  you,  were  all  spirits,  and 
Are  melted  into  air,  into  thin  air  ; 
And,  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  this  vision, 
The  cloud-capp'd  towers,  the  gorgeous  palaces, 
The  solemn  temples,  the  great  globe  itself, 
Yea,  all  which  it  inherit,  shall  dissolve 
And,  like  this  insubstantial  pageant  faded, 
Leave  not  a  rack  behind.  We  are  such  stuff 
As  dreams  are  made  on,  and  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  with  a  sleep. 

This  exquisite  passage  justifies  Symonds's  assertion 
that  the  characteristic  of  Shakspere's  blank  verse  is 
"  that  it  is  naturally,  unobtrusively,  and  enduringly 
musical.  We  hardly  know  why  his  words  are  melodi- 
ous, or  what  makes  them  always  fresh.  There  is  a 
subtle  adjustment  of  sound  to  sense,  of  lofty  thoughts 
to  appropriate  words  ;  the  ideas  evolve  themselves  with 
inexhaustible  spontaneity,  and  a  suitable  investiture 
of  language  is  never  wanting,  so  that  each  cadenced 
period  seems  made  to  hold  a  thought  of  its  own,  and 
thought  is  linked  to  thought  and  cadence  to  cadence  in 
unending  continuity.  Inferior  artists  have  systems  of 
melody,  pauses  which  they  repeat,  favorite  termina- 


BLANK  VERSE  235 

tions,  and  accelerations  or  retardations  of  rhythm, 
which  they  employ  whenever  the  occasion  prompts 
them.  But  there  is  none  of  this  in  Shakspere.  He 
never  falls  into  the  commonplace  of  mannerism." 

And  this  is  what  could  not  be  said  of  any  of  Shak- 
spere's  immediate  followers.  There  is  abundant  power 
in  the  blank  verse  of  Webster  and  even  of  Ford ;  but 
there  is  rarely  the  variety  and  the  ease  which  char- 
acterize Shakspere's  lines.  As  for  Fletcher  and  Mas- 
singer,  it  can  scarcely  be  denied  that  they  come  near 
to  falling  into  "  the  commonplace  of  mannerism."  In- 
deed, Fletcher  employed  a  feminine  ending  so  fre- 
quently that  his  style  often  approached  to  the  very 
verge  of  effeminacy.  But  he  is  undeniably  a  poet ;  and 
his  lines  have  constant  melody  and  sweetness.  Mas- 
singer,  on  the  other  hand,  is  less  poet  than  he  is  psy- 
chologist and  rhetorician  ;  and  his  blank  verse,  direct 
as  it  generally  is,  tends  to  be  a  little  pedestrian ;  and 
it  has  marked  peculiarities,  which  lend  themselves  eas- 
ily to  imitation.  Coleridge  declared  that  Ben  Jonson's 
blank  verse  is  "  very  masterly  and  individual  "  ;  and 
Symonds  added  that  it  was  the  blank  verse  of  "  a 
scholar  —  pointed,  polished  and  free  from  the  lyricisms 
of  his  age,"  lacking  harmony  and  often  labored ;  but 
"  vigorous  and  solid  it  never  fails  to  be." 

Even  the  less  richly  endowed  playwrights  of  that 
inspired  period,  Marston  and  Heywood,  Dekker  and 
Shirley,  are  all  of  them  capable  on  occasion  of  blank 
verse  of  fine  quality.  The  secret  of  it  seems  then  to 
have  been  a  common  property.  Upon  all  of  them,  each 
in  his  own  degree,  had  been  bestowed  the  ability  now 
and  again  to  write  plaintively  or  melodiously  or  nobly. 
And  moreover  all  of  the  dramatic  poets  of  that  splendid 


936  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

epoch  seem  to  have  understood  instinctively  the  neces- 
sity  which  the  playwright  is  under  of  always  adjusting 
his  lines  to  oral  delivery.  The  dramatist  wrote  his 
speeches  to  be  actually  spoken  in  the  theater  and  not 
merely  to  be  read  in  the  library.  His  appeal  was  not 
to  the  eye  of  the  reader  but  to  the  ear  of  the  hearer 
through  the  mouth  of  the  actor.  Therefore  the  Eliza- 
bethan playwright-poets  composed  blank  verse  which  is 
fundamentally  dramatic,  not  lyric  in  temper  or  narra- 
tive in  leisurely  movement. 

Symonds  pointed  out  that  Webster,  for  example, 
"  no  doubt  imagined  his  actors  declaiming  with  great 
variety  of  intonation,  with  frequent  and  lengthy  pauses, 
and  with  considerable  differences  in  the  rapidity  of 
their  utterances";  and  the  same  thing  might  be  said 
of  all  the  others,  —  above  all,  of  Shakspere,  whose 
lines  are  always  phrased  for  easy  delivery  by  the 
actor  and  reveal  always  a  delicate  adjustment  of  the 
rhythm  to  the  dramatic  situation.  He,  and  in  a  less 
degree  his  contemporaries,  possessed  the  true  secret  of 
blank  verse,  which  is  to  be  found  in  "  the  proper 
adaptation  of  words  and  rhythms  to  the  sense  contained 
in  them."  It  has  been  well  said  that  the  apparent 
irregularities  of  meter  in  the  plays  of  the  foremost 
Elizabethans  furnish  an  unerring  index  "  to  the  in- 
flections which  the  actors  must  have  used,  to  the  char- 
acters which  the  poets  designed,  and  to  the  situations 
which  they  calculated."  The  result  of  these  endeavors 
was  to  give  ease  and  variety  and  rapidity  to  blank 
verse  and  to  make  it  flexible  for  the  expression  of 
every  word. 

Thus  perfected  by  the  playwrights,  blank  verse  was 
ready  for  the  use  to  which  Milton  was  to  put  it.  The 


BLANK  VERSE  237 

stately  narrative  of  his  noble  epic,  with  its  intermit- 
tent dialog  and  its  occasional  set  debate,  demanded  a 
change  of  method.  It  was  written  to  be  read  in  the 
study  and  not  to  be  declaimed  on  the  stage ;  and  yet 
it  is  also  adjusted  to  the  voice,  — indeed,  it  does  not  dis- 
close its  full  beauty  until  it  is  uttered  aloud.  Although 
it  was  printed  for  the  eye,  its  appeal  was  to  the  ear  as 
well,  for  Milton  was  never  one  to  overlook  the  fact  that 
poetry  is  always  to  be  said  or  sung.  Even  the  purely 
narrative  passages  reveal  added  felicities  of  rhythm 
when  they  come  to  us  through  the  ear.  In  Milton's 
verse,  as  Lowell  asserted,  "the  music  makes  part  of  the 
meaning.  .  .  .  No  one  before  or  since  has  been  able 
to  give  to  simple  pentameters  the  majesty  and  com- 
pass of  the  organ.  He  was  as  much  composer  as  poet." 
The  iambic  pentameter  may  be  defined  as  a  se- 
quence of  five  alternate  short  and  long  syllables. 
When  it  achieved  this  exact  regularity,  it  concorded 
with  the  practice  of  Pope  and  it  won  the  approval  of 
Johnson.  But  to  apply  any  rigid  standard  of  this  sort 
to  Milton's  blank  verse  is  to  misapprehend  absolutely 
the  principle  upon  which  he  worked.  He  accepted  the 
strict  succession  of  iambics  only  as  a  norm ;  he  accus- 
tomed the  ear  to  the  alternate  shorts  and  longs ;  and 
then,  this  expectation  having  been  thus  established,  he 
adventures  numberless  variations,  as  daring  as  they 
are  successful.  With  him  the  line  is  no  longer  the 
unit  and  his  large  poetic  phrase  is  not  coincident  with 
any  single  line  or  sequence  of  lines.  It  has  an  ampler 
architecture ;  and  it  sweeps  forward  irresistibly,  with 
bold  licenses  of  substitution  which  immediately  justify 
themselves  to  the  ear,  however  much  they  may  discon- 
cert unsympathetic  critics  like  Johnson,  trained  to 


938  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

count  off  the  succeeding  snorts  and  longs  on  their  fin- 
gers. In  some  of  Milton's  superbly  organized  pas- 
sages, it  may  be  a  little  difficult  to  scan  any  single 
line  taken  by  itself,  since  this  line  thus  isolated  may 
seem  irregular  or  even  rugged.  But  if  the  whole  pas- 
sage is  read  aloud  with  due  regard  to  its  meaning 
and  with  care  to  give  the  emphasis  which  the  thought 
demands,  the  difficulty  disappears  and  the  ear  is  satis- 
fied by  the  majestic  sweep  of  the  rhythmic  movement. 
The  opening  lines  of  "  Paradise  Lost,"  elevated  and 
sonorous,  are  also  firm  in  their  regularity.  There  is 
an  occasional  substitution  of  a  trochee  for  an  iambus, 
but  even  the  thick-fingered  Johnson  ought  to  have 
found  little  difficulty  in  measuring  all  the  successive 
feet  by  his  unmusical  yardstick :  — 

Of  Man's  first  disobedience,  and  the  fruit 
Of  that  forbidden  tree  whose  mortal  taste 
Brought  death  into  the  World,  and  all  our  woe, 
With  loss  of  Eden,  till  one  greater  Man 
Restore  us,  and  regain  the  blissful  Seat, 
Sing,  Heavenly  Muse,  that,  on  the  secret  top 
Of  Oreb,  or  of  Sinai,  didst  inspire 
That  Shepherd  who  first  taught  the  chosen  seed 
In  the  beginning  how  the  heavens  and  earth 
Rose  out  of  Chaos;  or,  if  Sion  hill 
Delight  thee  more,  and  Siloa's  brook  that  flowed 
Fast  by  the  oracle  of  God,  I  thence 
Invoke  thy  aid  to  my  adventrous  song, 
That  with  no  middle  flight  intends  to  soar 
Above  the  Aonian  mount,  while  it  pursues 
Things  unattempted  yet  in  prose  or  rime. 

Compare  this  with  the  opening  of  one  of  Satan's 
speeches :  — 

Fall'n  Cherub,  to  be  weak  is  miserable, 
Doing  or  suffering :  but  of  this  be  sure  — 
To  do  aught  good  never  will  be  our  task, 


BLANK  VERSE  239 

But  ever  to  do  ill  our  sole  delight, 
As  being  the  coutrary  to  His  high  will 
Whom  we  resist. 

In  the  first  line  the  first  foot  ("  Fall'n  che  ")  is  a 
rather  forced  trochee  ;  and  the  last  foot  ("  serable  ") 
lacks  the  weight  which  might  be  expected  in  its  final 
syllable.  In  the  second  line  the  first  foot  ("  Doing  ") 
is  plainly  a  trochee  ;  and  the  third  foot  ("  fering ; 
but ")  is  plainly  an  anapest.  But  when  this  speech  is 
spoken  aloud,  the  ear  takes  no  account  of  these  diver- 
gences from  rigid  regularity.  The  substitutions  impose 
themselves  upon  us,  without  demur  on  our  part.  They 
have  given  variety  to  these  first  two  lines ;  and  they 
have  not  diverted  our  attention  to  themselves.  If  we 
disregard  the  satisfactory  impression  made  on  the  ear 
and  study  the  passage  with  the  eye,  we  discover  that 
the  single  line  is  not  here  the  dominant  unit  of  meas- 
ure. Nor  was  it  generally  in  Milton's  epics  ;  he  com- 
posed his  passages  as  integral  wholes,  in  which  the 
line  plays  a  part  but  in  which  it  is  not  allowed  to 
force  itself  on  the  attention.  Of  course,  there  are  in- 
stances not  a  few  where  we  discover  Milton  to  achieve 
a  subtle  effect  by  isolating  a  single  line  and  charging 
it  with  a  full  and  complete  message  of  its  own. 

Symonds  pointed  out  that  Milton's  "  most  sonorous 
passages  begin  and  end  with  interrupted  lines,  includ- 
ing in  one  organic  structure,  periods,  parentheses,  and 
paragraphs  of  fluent  melody,  that  the  harmonies  are 
wrought  by  subtle  and  most  complex  alliterative  sys- 
tems, by  delicate  changes  in  the  length  and  volume  of 
syllables,  and  by  the  choice  of  names  magnificent  for 
their  mere  gorgeousness  of  sound  "  ;  and  he  insisted 
that  "  in  these  structures  there  are  many  pauses  which 


240  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

enable  the  ear  and  voice  to  rest  themselves,  but  none 
are  perfect,  none  satisfy  the  want  created  by  the  open- 
ing hemistich,  until  the  final  and  deliberate  close  is 
reached."  And  he  cited  in  evidence  this  passage :  — 

And  now  his  heart 

Distends  with  pride,  and,  hardening  in  his  strength, 
Glories  :  for  never,  since  created  Man, 
Met  such  embodied  force  as,  named  with  these, 
Could  merit  more  than  that  small  infantry 
Warr'd  on  by  cranes  —  though  all  the  giant  brood 
Of  Phlegra  with  the  heroic  race  were  join'd 
That  fought  at  Thebes  and  Ilium,  on  each  side 
Mix'd  with  auxiliar  gods;  and  what  resounds 
In  fable  or  romance  of  Uther's  son, 
Begirt  with  British  and  Armoric  knights; 
And  all  who  since,  baptized  or  infidel, 
Jousted  in  Aspramont,  or  Montalban, 
Damasco,  or  Marocco,  or  Trebisond, 
Or  whom  Biserta  sent  from  Afric  shore 
When  Charlemain  with  all  his  peerage  fell 
By  Fontarabbia. 

"Milton's  use  of  pause  is  unique,"  so  Professor 
Saintsbury  has  insisted ;  "  like  Shakspere,  he  will  put 
it  anywhere  or  nowhere."  And  the  varied  effect  of 
his  constant  shifting  of  the  pause  and  of  his  refusal 
to  place  it  frequently  in  the  middle  of  the  line,  he 
heightened  by  abundant  variations  from  the  strict  suc- 
cession of  iambics.  He  substituted  trochees  at  will,  in 
any  one  of  the  five  feet,  even  in  the  last.  He  called 
in  the  aid  of  the  anapest  whenever  he  felt  the  need  of 
that  swifter  and  lighter  foot :  — 

Because  thou  hast  hearkened  to  the  voice  of  thy  wife. 

He  achieved  the  spondee  on  occasion,  a  foot  almost 
impossible  in  our  sharply  accented  tongue :  — 

Caves,  rocks,  lakes,  fens,  bays,  dens,  and  shades  of  death. 


BLANK  VERSE  241 

His  intimate  familiarity  with  the  Greek  and  Latin 
poets  helped  him  to  attain  metrical  effects  rare  in 
English  because  they  were  due  mainly  to  quantity,  to 
the  contrast  of  syllables  not  only  stressed  but  actually 
long  or  short  in  duration  of  utterance.  If  his  metrical 
daring  does  not  always  justify  itself,  —  and  it  might 
be  possible  to  pick  out  a  very  few  instances  whore 
this  must  be  admitted,  —  this  may  be  due  to  his  ab- 
sorption of  the  Italian  poets,  which  tempted  him  to 
give  an  Italianate  accent  to  an  English  word,  an  ac- 
cent which  the  English  reader  recognizes  only  by  an 
effort. 

After  Milton  blank  verse  went  under  a  cloud.  Dry- 
den  and  Pope  preferred  the  heroic  couplet  and  polished 
it  to  suit  their  several  needs.  It  is  true  that  Dryden 
could  write  bold  blank  verse ;  but  he  rarely  chose  to  do 
so.  Addison's  blank  verse  serves  to  show  how  com- 
pletely the  poets  had  forgotten  the  lessons  of  Shak- 
spere  and  Milton  ;  it  is  not  only  uninspired  and  monoto- 
nous, but  it  returns  to  the  earlier  and  easier  structure, 
wherein  the  line  coincides  with  the  sentence,  or  at  least 
with  a  clause  of  the  sentence,  and  whereby  the  several 
lines  may  be  said  to  have  each  an  almost  independent 
existence.  The  influence  of  the  riming  heroic  couplet, 
metrically  identical  and  yet  wholly  different  in  spirit 
and  in  opportunity,  weighed  down  blank  verse  and 
kept  it  from  soaring  aloft.  In  time,  Thomson  and  Cow- 
per  recovered  much  of  its  freedom ;  and  they  opened 
the  doors  for  Coleridge  and  Wordsworth.  In  his  turn, 
Keats  recaptured  a  portion  of  the  Miltonic  melody, 
not  the  majesty  of  his  mighty  predecessor,  but  some- 
thing of  the  music.  And  here  in  America  Bryant  — 
not  a  great  poet,  not  foremost  even  among  our  own 


242  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

bards  —  found  in  blank  verse  a  meter  which  exactly 
suited  his  large  stateliness.  Here  is  the  opening  pas- 
sage of  the  austere  and  lofty  "  Thanatopsis  " :  — 

To  him  who  in  the  love  of  Nature  holds 

Communion  with  her  visible  forms,  she  speaks 

A  various  language.  For  his  gayer  hours 

She  has  a  voice  of  gladness,  and  a  smile 

And  eloquence  of  beauty,  and  she  glides 

Into  his  darker  musings,  with  a  mild 

And  healing  sympathy,  that  steals  away 

Their  sharpness,  ere  he  is  aware.  When  thoughts 

Of  the  last  bitter  hour  come  like  a  blight 

Over  thy  spirit,  and  sad  images 

Of  the  stern  agony,  and  shroud  and  pall, 

And  breathless  darkness,  and  the  narrow  house 

Make  thee  to  shudder,  and  grow  sick  at  heart;  — 

Go  forth,  under  the  open  sky,  and  list 

To  Nature's  teachings. 

Brian  Hooker  has  justly  called  attention  to  "  the 
subtile  grading  of  the  stresses,  the  vigorous  contrast 
of  scansion  and  phrase-rhythm,  and  the  tireless  variety 
of  the  pauses  "  ;  and  then  he  asked  us  to  consider  also 
"  how  all  this  opposition  is  held  under  just  sufficient 
control,  so  that  the  equilibrium  of  the  normal  scansion, 
continually  and  seductively  threatened,  is  never  for  one 
moment  overthrown."  And  it  must  be  remembered  to 
Bryant's  credit  that  although  this  was  written  after 
Wordsworth  and  Keats  had  reinvigorated  blank  verse, 
it  was  composed  before  Tennyson  and  Browning. 

Tennyson  early  made  himself  a  master  of  blank 
verse.  In  his  hands  it  has  melodious  flexibility,  varied 
cadences,  richness  of  alliteration  and  of  colliteration, 
and  deliberate  sweetness  of  tone.  The  workmanship  is 
exquisite,  but  a  little  cloying  and  a  little  self-conscious. 
The  beauty  of  Tennyson's  blank  verse  strikes  us  as 


BLANK  VERSE  243 

studied  rather  than  spontaneous.  The  effects  he  aimed 
at  he  attained ;  but  we  often  are  aware  of  the  effort. 
His  style  is  sweetly  lyric  rather  than  boldly  epic  or 
pregnantly  dramatic.  His  blank  verse  lacks  largeness 
of  sweep  and  inevitability  of  phrase.  It  is  graceful, 
charming,  idyllic ;  it  suggests  a  Tanagra  figurine  rather 
than  the  Hermes  of  Praxiteles. 

Browning's  blank  verse  is  less  artificial,  indeed  it 
rarely  calls  attention  to  itself,  rushing  forward  as 
though  it  was  the  poet's  natural  expression.  It  is  devoid 
of  all  marquetry  of  beautiful  sounds ;  it  may  even  be 
termed  harsh  or  at  least  rugged ;  and  in  its  frankly 
dramatic  march  it  is  tense  and  masculine.  Here  are  a 
few  lines  from  "  An  Epistle,  containing  the  Strange 
Medical  Experience  of  Karshish  "  :  — 

The  very  God  !  think,  Abib  :  dost  thou  think  ? 
So,  the  All-Great,  were  the  All-Loving  too  — 
So,  through  the  thunder  comes  a  human  voice 
Saying,  "  O  heart  I  made,  a  heart  beats  here  I 
Face,  my  hands  fashioned,  see  it  in  myself  ! 
Thou  hast  no  power  nor  rnayst  conceive  of  mine, 
But  love  I  gave  thee,  with  myself  to  love, 
And  thou  must  love  me  who  have  died  for  thee  1" 
The  madman  saith  He  said  so:  it  is  strange. 


CHAPTER  XII 

POETIC  LICENSE 

This  poetical  license  is  a  shrewd  fellow,  and  covereth  manj  faults  ia 
»  verse ;  it  maketh  words  longer,  shorter,  of  more  syllables,  of  fewer, 
newer,  older,  truer,  falser ;  and  to  conclude  it  turneth  all  things  at 
pleasure.  —  GEORGE  GASCOIQNE:  Certain  Notes  of  Instruction  concern- 
ing the  Making  of  Verse.  (1575.) 

THERE  is  advantage  always  in  beginning  any  discussion 
with  a  sharp  definition  of  the  thing  to  be  discussed. 
Here,  then,  is  a  pertinent  characterization  of  license 
which  we  find  in  the  latest  edition  of  Webster's  Dic- 
tionary :  "  That  deviation  from  strict  fact,  form,  or 
rule  in  which  an  artist  or  writer  indulges,  assuming 
that  it  will  be  permitted  for  the  sake  of  the  advantage 
or  effect  gained."  And  this  warrants  us  in  declaring 
that  a  poetic  license  is  a  departure  from  strict  form, 
which  the  verse-writer  permits  himself  in  the  belief 
that  it  will  be  pardoned  for  the  sake  of  some  effect 
he  may  thereby  gain  or  of  some  advantage  he  could 
not  otherwise  attain.  In  other  words,  poetic  license 
may  be  described  as  a  privilege  claimed  by  the  poet 
of  sacrificing  something  that  seems  to  him  relatively 
unimportant  to  secure  something  else  that  he  holds  of 
superior  value.  He  may  feel,  for  example,  that  he 
cannot  express  himself  fully,  unless  he  is  permitted, 
once  in  a  way,  to  depart  from  the  strict  rules  of 
grammar  or  rhetoric,  to  employ  an  arbitrary  con- 
traction, a  forced  accent  or  a  disconcerting  inversion 
of  the  natural  order  of  words,  or  to  avail  himself  of  a 


POETIC  LICENSE  £45 

so-called  allowable  rime,  —  which  is  of  a  truth  no  rime 
at  all. 

When  the  case  is  thus  stated,  the  question  as  to  the 
permissibility  of  any  poetic  license  is  easy  to  answer. 
In  the  specific  instance,  was  the  poet  right  in  his  feel- 
ing as  to  the  importance  of  the  two  things  one  of 
which  he  sacrificed  to  the  other?  And  was  he  justified 
in  his  belief  that  he  could  attain  his  advantage  and 
gain  his  effect  in  no  other  way  than  by  departing 
from  the  letter  of  the  law  ?  If  his  decision  was  sound, 
then  will  he  be  forgiven  his  violation  of  form,  even 
though  we  cannot  help  being  more  or  less  conscious  of 
his  departure  from  the  normal  use  of  language.  Every 
single  instance  of  poetic  license  must  needs  be  ex- 
amined by  itself ;  and  the  poet  can  claim  no  general 
permit  to  do  as  he  pleases.  His  poem  is  always  in- 
tended to  be  said  or  sung ;  its  appeal  is  ever  to  the 
ears  of  those  to  whom  it  is  addressed ;  it  arouses  in  us 
a  certain  expectancy  both  of  content  and  of  form, 
and  if  for  any  reason,  good  or  bad,  the  poet  chooses 
to  disappoint  that  expectancy,  he  can  do  so  only  at 
his  peril,  —  at  the  risk  of  breaking  the  circuit  which 
must  bind  together  the  listener  and  the  singer. 

If  the  verse-writer  has  seen  fit  to  disappoint  the 
expectancy  he  has  created  in  the  ears  of  his  hearers, 
by  an  awkward  inversion,  by  an  unwonted  contraction, 
by  the  use  of  a  so-called  "  allowable  "  rime,  by  an  un- 
grammatical  employment  of  words,  or  by  any  other 
license,  his  sole  excuse  must  be  that  this  was  necessary 
or  at  least  profitable  in  that  special  instance,  since 
only  by  the  aid  of  that  license  could  he  attain  the 
effect  he  was  seeking  at  the  moment.  This  is  akin  to 
what  the  lawyers  call  a  plea  of  confession  and  avoid- 


246  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

ance  ;  and  the  burden  of  proof  is  on  the  poet  to  show 
that  he  was  justified  in  his  faith.  That  is  to  say,  do 
we,  his  hearers,  unhesitatingly  pardon  his  departure 
from  strict  rule,  because  of  the  ultimate  result?  If  we 
do,  then  there  is  nothing  more  to  be  said,  and  an  in- 
sistence upon  the  letter  of  the  law  is  beside  the  mark. 
Our  own  ears  are  the  final  court  of  appeal,  and  when 
they  are  satisfied  the  poet  may  depart  without  a  stain 
on  his  character.  The  jury  will  refrain  from  all  cen- 
sure if  they  have  been  charmed  by  an  "  intuitive  phrase 
where  the  imagination  at  a  touch  precipitates  thought, 
feeling  and  image  in  an  imperishable  crystal,"  —  to 
borrow  Lowell's  suggestive  words.  The  more  inspired 
the  poet  may  be  and  the  loftier  the  theme,  the  less 
likely  are  we  to  turn  the  crystal  over  in  search  of 
flaws.  When  we  are  rapt  out  of  ourselves  we  fail  to 
notice  any  little  liberties  the  poet  may  have  taken 
with  the  language,  and  we  are  ready  enough  to  par- 
don them  if  they  happen  to  attract  our  attention. 

But  only  a  true  poet  can  do  this  unerringly,  and  he 
can  do  it  only  on  occasion  when  he  is  sweeping  us  away 
with  surging  emotion  or  lifting  us  on  high  with  ethe- 
real imagination.  His  eye  in  fine  frenzy  rolling  will 
profit  him  nothing,  unless  he  weaves  an  incantation 
about  our  ears  also.  For  those  who  are  not  assured 
that  they  are  true  poets  there  is  only  one  counsel  of 
perfection,  —  to  abide  sturdily  by  all  the  rules  of 
the  game  and  to  refuse  resolutely  to  apply  for  any 
license  to  break  the  law  at  will.  As  the  younger  Tom 
Hood  declared  in  his  useful  little  treatise  on  the 
"  Rules  of  Rhyme,"  "  the  poet  gives  to  the  world  his 
sublime  thoughts,  diamonds  of  the  purest  water " ; 
and  it  would  be  petty  "  to  quibble  about  minor  points 


POETIC  LICENSE  £47 

of  the  polishing  and  setting  of  such  gems,"  whereas 
the  writer  of  mere  verse  does  not  pretend  to  give  us 
diamonds.  "  He  offers  paste  brilliants,  and  therefore 
it  the  more  behooves  him  to  see  to  the  perfection  of 
the  cutting,  on  which  their  beauty  depends."  This  is 
well  put ;  and  yet  attention  may  be  called  to  the  sig- 
nificant fact  that  the  poets  who  have  had  the  sublim- 
est  thoughts  have  generally  been  the  most  careful  in 
their  craftsmanship.  No  one  would  deny  sublimity  to 
Dante  and  Milton,  who  are  both  of  them  impeccable 
artists  in  the  cutting,  the  polishing,  and  the  setting  of 
their  diamonds  of  the  purest  water.  It  is  not  from  the 
"Divine  Comedy"  or  from  "Paradise  Lost  "  that  we 
can  most  easily  quote  examples  of  poetic  license. 
These  great  poets  did  their  best  always,  sparing  no 
pains  and  delighting  in  the  labor  which  was  to  insure 
faultlessness  of  expression. 

If  the  strictness  of  the  law  did  not  crib,  cabin  and 
confine  Dante  and  Milton,  if  these  major  bards  were 
willing  to  be  bound  that  they  might  be  free,  still  more 
strongly  does  the  obligation  lie  upon  all  lesser  poets, 
upon  all  mere  verse-writers,  upon  all  who  make  the 
confession  we  find  in  Browning's  "  One  Word  More," 

Verse  and  nothing  else  have  I  to  give  you. 

In  fact,  the  humbler  the  task  and  the  more  modest 
the  versifier  the  more  inexorable  should  he  be  with  him- 
self. Especially  is  this  conscientiousness  imposed  upon 
the  writers  of  familiar  verse.  As  Locker-Lampson  as- 
serted, "however  trivial  the  subject-matter  may  be — 
indeed,  rather  in  proportion  to  its  triviality  —  subordi- 
nation to  the  rules  of  composition,  and  perfection  of  ex- 
ecution, should  be  strictly  enforced."  Locker-Lampson 


248  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

always  practised  what  he  preached,  so  does  his  friendly 
rival,  Austin  Dobson  ;  and  a  large  part  of  the  ease  and 
grace  of  their  delightful  lyrics  is  due  to  their  unfailing 
acceptance  of  the  highest  standards  of  workmanship. 
Both  of  them  profited  by  the  example  of  the  French, 
whose  versification  is  generally  sustained  at  a  lofty 
level.  Indeed,  Lowell  once  asserted  that  very  often  in 
French  verse  "  only  the  high  polish  keeps  out  the  decay." 
It  was  for  the  apprentice  poets  of  his  own  language 
that  Theodore  de  Banville  composed  his  little  treatise 
on  French  versification.  And  in  that  very  entertaining 
volume  he  declared  that  his  chapter  on  "poetic  li- 
censes "  contained  only  a  single  sentence :  "  There  are 
none  ":  —  "  What !  "  he  cried,  "  under  the  pretence  of 
writing  in  verse,  that  is  to  say  in  a  tongue  which  de- 
mands rhythm  and  orderliness  above  all  else,  you  claim 
the  right  to  be  disorderly  and  to  violate  the  rules.  And 
this  on  the  pretext  that  it  would  have  been  too  diffi- 
cult to  get  into  your  verse  what  you  wanted  to  put 
into  it  exactly  as  you  wanted  to  put  it.  But  that  is  pre- 
cisely what  the  art  of  versification  is,  and  it  cannot 
consist  in  not  doing  what  you  have  undertaken  to  do." 
This  may  sound  like  a  hard  saying,  and,  in  fact,  another 
French  poet,  Auguste  Dorchain,  writing  on  the  "  Art 
of  Verse"  has  boldly  called  it  a  paradox.  But  it  con- 
tains the  root  of  the  matter ;  and  it  recognizes  the  fact 
that  the  true  artist,  poet  or  painter,  sculptor  or  archi- 
tect, never  shrinks  from  apparent  difficulty.  On  the 
contrary,  he  glories  in  vanquishing  it.  He  grapples 
with  it  gladly,  knowing  that  then  only  can  he  put  forth 
his  full  strength.  His  desire  is  not  merely  to  express 
himself  amply,  but  also  always  to  make  a  good  job  of 
the  expression  itself. 


POETIC  LICENSE  249 

And  he  accepts  the  conditions  of  the  job,  whatever 
they  may  be,  and  however  arduous  they  may  appear  at 
first  glance.  No  doubt,  Michael  Angelo  might  have 
asked  to  have  false  flat  surfaces  cover  the  curved  ceiling 
of  the  Sistine  Chapel,  and  certainly  this  would  have 
made  his  task  easier ;  but  we  may  be  sure  that  no  such 
thought  ever  entered  his  mind.  He  found  himself  face 
to  face  with  a  new  problem  in  painting,  and  he  yielded 
himself  joyfully  to  its  fascination,  snatching  the  flower, 
safety,  out  of  the  nettle,  danger.  He  would  have  scorned 
to  plead  for  any  license  of  any  kind,  just  as  Milton 
would  have  scorned  to  append  a  fifteenth  line  to  a 
sonnet.  Strong  men  like  Michael  Angelo  and  Milton 
are  never  tempted  to  plead  the  baby  act.  They  never 
beg  off :  they  would  smile  with  contempt  at  the  weak- 
lings who  are  content  with  the  easiest  way. 

Yes;  when  the  ways  oppose  — 

When  the  hard  means  rebel, 
Fairer  the  work  out-grows,  — 

More  potent  far  the  spell. 

O  Poet,  then,  forbear 

The  loosely-saudaled  verse, 
Choose  rather  thou  to  wear 

The  buskin,  straight  and  terse; 

See  that  thy  form  demand 

The  labor  of  the  file; 
Leave  to  the  tiro's  hand 

The  limp  pedestrian  style. 

Paint,  chisel,  then,  or  write; 

But,  that  the  work  surpass, 
With  the  hard  fashion  fight,— 

With  the  resisting  mass. 


250  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Thus  Austin  Dobson  has  rephrased  in  compact 
English  Gautier's  declaration  of  the  creed  of  all  true 
artists.  They  relish  the  hard  fight  for  perfection  of 
form ;  and  they  enjoy  the  long  siege  which  shall  force 
a  rebellious  matter  to  surrender  itself  at  last  in  the 
fittest  manner.  They  would  scoff  at  the  suggestion 
which  Walker  made  in  his  "  Riming  Dictionary " 
that  the  mating  of  two  words  not  identical  in  their 
terminal  sounds  may  be  forgiven  on  the  ground  that 
even  "  if  these  imperfect  rimes  were  allowed  to  be 
blemishes  it  would  still  be  better  to  tolerate  them 
than  to  cramp  the  imagination  by  too  narrow  bound- 
aries of  exactly  similar  sounds."  The  worthy  Walker 
herein  revealed  his  total  misunderstanding  of  the 
fundamental  condition  of  all  art,  which  is  ever  a 
wrestle  with  difficulty  and  an  ultimate  conquest,  after 
valiant  striving  and  impending  defeat.  The  struggle 
with  stubborn  expression  is  only  the  stimulus  to  a 
final  triumph ;  and  no  real  artist  ever  finds  it  cramp- 
ing to  the  imagination.  It  is  only  by  incessant  over- 
coming of  obstacles  which  may  seem  for  a  season 
insuperable  that  the  master  measures  his  full  strength, 
training  his  muscles  and  his  nerves  to  obey  his  will. 
The  poet  who  shrinks  timidly  from  strenuous  effort, 
and  who  is  lazily  willing  to  avail  himself  of  the  tradi- 
tional poetic  licenses  for  fear  of  cramping  his  imagina- 
tion, may  be  likened  to  a  man  playing  patience  who 
should  feel  himself  at  liberty  to  depart  from  the  rules 
in  order  to  compel  the  cards  to  come  out  right.  We 
cannot  help  despising  any  creature  so  weak  of  charac- 
ter as  to  cheat  himself  into  a  belief  that  the  game  can 
be  won  in  this  way.  And  we  have  a  stern  respect  for 
the  stronger  poets  who  hold  with  the  whist-loving 


POETIC  LICENSE  2*1 

Mrs.  Battle  in  her  liking  for  "  A  clear  fire,  a  clean 
hearth  and  the  rigor  of  the  game." 

The  rigor  of  the  game,  the  letter  of  the  law,  the 
full  submission  to  the  rules,  —  these  are  terms  which 
will  be  misleading  if  they  seem  to  suggest  that  there 
is  any  arbitrary  code  promulgated  by  some  superior 
power  and  imposed  upon  the  poet.  Of  course,  the 
poet  is  under  no  other  compulsion  than  so  to  express 
himself  that  he  can  transmit  his  thought  and  com- 
municate his  emotion  instantly  to  his  hearers.  For 
his  own  sake,  and  under  obligation  only  to  himself, 
the  poet  must  avoid  all  impediment  to  this  conveying 
of  his  meaning  to  us.  Whatever  calls  away  our  atten- 
tion from  his  message  is  a  hindrance  to  our  swift  and 
complete  reception  of  it.  The  principle  of  Economy  of 
Attention  is  even  more  imperative  in  the  rhetoric  of 
verse  than  in  the  rhetoric  of  prose.  A  certain  propor- 
tion of  the  reader's  attention  is  necessarily  absorbed 
by  the  effort  of  following  the  means  whereby  the 
writer  sets  forth  what  he  has  to  say,  and  therefore 
that  style  is  best  which  calls  least  attention  to  itself, 
which  offers  least  resistance  to  the  sending  of  the 
message,  and  which  leaves  the  most  attention  free  for 
its  reception.  In  other  words,  a  writer  must  so  guard 
the  manner  of  his  utterance  that  we  can  get  his 
matter  with  the  slightest  possible  friction.  And  this 
is  the  only  law  that  all  writers  must  obey,  whether 
they  work  in  prose  or  in  verse. 

They  violate  it  only  at  their  own  risk ;  and  every 
poetic  license  is  a  violation  of  this  law.  What  are 
the  various  kinds  of  poetic  license  ?  Inversions,  arbi- 
trary accents,  imperfect  rimes,  unusual  contractions, 
and  departures  from  accepted  grammar  ;  —  and  every 


252  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

one  of  these  is  likely  to  interrupt  the  current,  to  in- 
terfere with  the  poet's  purpose,  to  call  attention  to 
itself  if  only  for  a  fleeting  moment,  and  thus  to  take 
away  some  part  of  our  attention  —  however  little  it 
may  be  —  from  the  thing  which  he  is  telling  us. 
Some  of  these  arbitrary  variations  from  normal 
speech,  some  of  these  contractions,  some  of  these 
inadequate  rimes,  may  seem  to  the  poet  to  be  conse- 
crated by  tradition.  But  he  cannot  claim  precedent, 
because  he  has  no  right  to  suppose  that  all  his  hearers 
are  familiar  with  the  earlier  poets,  whose  practices  he 
would  cite  as  authorizing  his  own  wilfulness.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  a  few  of  these  hearers  of  his  may  be 
familiar  with  the  poets  of  the  past,  and  those  may  or 
may  not  be  disposed  to  tolerate  a  poetic  license  sanc- 
tified by  convention.  On  the  other  hand,  many  of  them 
will  surely  lack  this  acquaintance  with  earlier  bards; 
and  these  are  likely  to  be  annoyed  by  his  failure  to 
satisfy  the  expectation  he  has  created.  If  a  poet  is 
seeking  to  reach  the  heart  of  the  people,  he  must  deny 
himself  the  poetic  licenses  that  earlier  poets  indulged 
in ;  and  he  is  in  error  if  he  thinks  that  in  verse-making 
"freedom  slowly  broadens  down  from  precedent  to 
precedent." 

Of  all  the  various  departures  from  the  proper  use 
of  language  which  constitute  the  several  kinds  of 
poetic  license,  perhaps  the  most  defensible  are  inver- 
sions. The  rhythmic  march  of  stately  verse  often  calls 
for  a  change  in  the  natural  order  of  words  and  often 
justifies  it  to  the  ear.  In  the  opening  lines  of  "  Para- 
dise Lost "  we  find  an  example  of  this  justifiable 
inversion  or  rather  of  inversion  which  is  actually 
helpful :  — 


POETIC  LICENSE  253 

Of  Man's  first  disobedience,  and  the  fruit 
Of  that  forbidden  tree  whose  mortal  taste 
Brought  death  into  the  World,  and  all  our  woe, 
With  loss  of  Eden,  till  one  greater  Mau 
Restore  us,  and  regain  the  blissful  Seat, 
Sing,  Heavenly  Muse  I 

The  ear  easily  carries  the  meaning  as  it  is  unrolled 
until  the  phrase  ends  with  the  words  "  Sing,  Heavenly 
Muse  !  "  which  logically  should  come  first.  And  many 
other  examples  as  illuminating  could  readily  be  se- 
lected from  the  same  epic.  Indeed,  this  is  not  really 
an  instance  of  poetic  license,  since  the  inversion  here 
does  not  interfere  with  the  Economy  of  Attention ; 
indeed,  it  may  even  heighten  this.  So  the  two  inver- 
sions in  one  of  the  stanzas  of  Wordsworth's  noble 
"  Ode  to  Duty  "  justify  themselves  at  once,  because 
they  are  congruous  to  the  temper  of  the  poem  as  a 
whole :  — 

To  humbler  functions,  awful  Power  1 

I  call  thee  :  I  myself  commend 

Unto  thy  guidance  from  this  hour  ; 

Oh,  let  my  weakness  have  an  end  I 

In  these  two  examples,  Milton's  and  Wordsworth's, 
the  eye  of  the  reader  may  detect  the  inversion  ;  but  the 
ear  of  the  hearer  would  accept  them  without  notice. 
It  is  said  that  certain  of  the  horses  in  the  frieze  of  the 
Parthenon  have  legs  only  on  the  outer  side  and  that 
the  legs  on  the  inner  side  have  been  suppressed  un- 
hesitatingly by  the  sculptor,  a  departure  from  nature 
which  can  be  detected  only  by  careful  observation ; 
and  this  can  scarcely  be  termed  a  license  since  it  is 
but  the  suppression  of  something  non-essential  to  the 
purpose  of  the  artist.  This  suppression  in  no  wise 
calls  attention  to  itself ;  and  thus  it  is  parallel  with 


254  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

the  inversions  just  quoted  from  Milton  and  Words- 
worth. 

Closely  akin  to  awkward  inversions  are  arbitrary 
contractions,  such  as  ta'en  for  taken,  o'er  for  over  or 
'gainst  for  against.  Here  again,  the  sole  question  is 
whether  these  departures  from  normal  language  call 
attention  to  themselves.  Do  they  interfere  with  our 
Economy  of  Attention,  as  the  lines  fall  upon  our  ears  ? 
If  they  do  not,  then  they  justify  themselves.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  'gainst  is  so  slight  a  variation  from 
against  that  most  ears  would  fail  to  notice  it,  while 
on  the  other  hand  ta'en  for  taken  would  be  likely  to 
annoy  the  ordinary  hearer  not  acquainted  with  the 
traditions  of  English  poetry.  The  Elizabethan  poets, 
especially  the  dramatists,  were  free  in  their  contrac- 
tions. They  risked  'stroy  for  destroy,  'tide  for  decide, 
'stall  for  instal ;  and  all  of  these  licenses  would  jar 
on  our  ears  to-day,  whatever  they  may  have  done  long 
ago.  The  Elizabethans  also  were  wont  to  use  'twixt 
for  betwixt  and  'neath  for  underneath  ;  and  here  they 
seem  to  have  anticipated  our  modern  use  of  the 
shorter  form  as  an  accepted  contraction  so  familiar 
that  it  opposes  no  friction  to  the  thought. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  later  poets  of  the  classi- 
cist period  made  many  contractions  which  now  seem 
to  us  unnecessary ;  they  accepted  a  theory  of  rigid 
regularity  of  rhythm  and  did  not  allow  themselves 
to  profit  by  the  privilege  of  substituting  frankly  an 
anapest  for  an  iamb,  which  the  ear  usually  admits 
without  cavil.  Thus  they  felt  themselves  forced  to 
write  whisp'ring  for  whispering,  tim'rous  for  timor- 
ous, mis'ry  for  misery,  —  contractions  imposed  upon 
them  by  their  narrow  theory  of  verse  and  yet  not  of- 


POETIC  LICENSE  255 

fensive  to  us  to-day  because  they  are  evident  only  to 
our  eyes  and  not  audible  in  our  ears,  wbich  uncon- 
sciously supply  the  missing  syllable. 

Where  some  versifiers  have  forced  a  word  to  fit 
into  their  metrical  schemes  by  violently  mangling  it, 
others  have  been  able  to  accomplish  the  feat  only  by 
altering  its  ordinary  accent.  They  have  wrenched  the 
pronunciation  of  a  single  word  to  compel  it  to  fit  into 
the  rhythm  of  their  lines.  Sometimes  this  seems  to  be 
mere  wilf  ulness,  as  in  Walt  Whitman's  "  O  Captain ! 
My  Captain ! "  noble  as  that  is  in  its  elevation  and  firm 
as  it  is  in  its  structure.  The  poet  was  so  unused  to  rime 
that  he  required  us  to  accent  the  insignificant  ing  twice 
in  order  to  get  a  semblance  of  rime  that  he  needed ;  and 
he  is  guilty  of  this  in  two  stanzas  out  of  three :  — 

The  port  is  near,  the  bells  I  hear,  the  people  all  exulting, 
While  follow  eyes  the  steady  keel,  the  vessel  grim  and  daring, 

and  again 

For  you  bouquets  and  ribbon 'd  wreaths  —  for  you  the  shores 

a-crowdm<7, 
For  you  they  call,  the  swaying  mass,  their  eager  faces  turning. 

Sometimes,  however,  the  poet  is  not  really  falsify- 
ing the  accent,  although  he  may  seem  to  do  so  to  the 
eye  of  the  pedantic  reader.  Milton,  for  example,  in  his 
famous  line  describing  the  fallen  angel's  descent, 

Burned  after  him  to  the  bottomless  pit, 

did  not  intend  that  the  word  bottomless  should  have 
an  arbitrary  stress  on  its  second  syllable.  He  dared 
the  natural  pronunciation  of  the  word  here,  because 
he  needed  the  unexpected  variation  in  the  meter  to 
suggest,  at  once  boldly  and  subtly,  the  irresistible 
slipping  down  into  the  fathomless  depth.  The  license 


256  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

here,  if  there  is  any,  is  not  a  question  of  pronuncia- 
tion,  but  of  meter ;  and  if  the  passage  is  read  aloud 
with  due  regard  to  mass  and  weight,  the  ear  is  not 
offended  by  the  departure  from  regularity.  Rather, 
indeed,  is  this  departure  an  element  in  the  power  and 
beauty  of  the  poetic  narrative. 

Now  and  again  in  English  poetry  we  come  across 
a  colloquial  looseness  which  may  seem  to  some  persons 
a  blunder  in  grammar.  On  occasion  we  discover  this 
to  have  been  intentional,  indulged  in  as  a  stroke  of 
humor,  as,  for  example,  in  Prior's  playful  epistle :  — 

Then  finish,  dear  Chloe,  this  pastoral  war  ; 

And  let  us  like  Horace  and  Lydia  agree  : 
For  thou  art  a  girl  as  much  brighter  than  her, 

As  he  was  a  poet  sublimer  than  me. 

But  there  is  apparently  no  intent  in  a  grammatical 
perversity  of  Byron's,  — 

And  send'st  him,  shivering  in  thy  playful  spray, 
And  howling,  to  his  Gods,  where  haply  lies 
His  petty  hope  in  some  near  port  or  bay, 
And  dashest  him  again  to  earth  :  —  there  let  him  lay. 

With  all  his  great  gifts  Byron  often  lacked  art.  In 
his  verse  he  was  not  willing  always  to  take  the  trouble 
to  put  his  best  foot  foremost.  Probably  he  would  have 
approved  of  Coleridge's  saying  that  "  poetry,  like 
schoolboys,  by  too  frequent  and  severe  correction, 
may  be  cowed  into  dulness."  And  yet  there  is  no 
denying  that  to  be  content  to  move  along  the  line  of 
least  resistance  is  as  demoralizing  and  as  dangerous  in 
verse-writing  as  it  is  in  character-building. 

Byron  has  often  the  brisk  celerity  of  the  impro- 
viser ;  and  he  shrank  from  the  labor  of  the  file.  In 
his  graver  verse  he  was  ready  enough  to  take  what- 


POETIC  LICENSE  257 

ever  rimes  might  run  off  the  end  of  his  pen.  And  the 
most  frequent  of  all  poetic  licenses  is  that  which  is 
supposed  to  permit  the  linking  of  two  words  which 
do  not  chime  with  precision.  Byron  was  willing  to 
begin  his  "  Stanzas  "  with 

Could  Love  for  ever 

Run  like  a  river. 

And  later  in   the   same  lyric  he  is  content  to  set 

down 

When  lovers  parted 
Feel  broken-Aeartec? 
And,  all  hopes  thwarted^ 
Expect  to  die. 

Ever  does  not  rime  with  river^  unless  we  are  ex- 
pected to  pronounce  it  iver ;  and  thwarted  does  not 
rime  with  parted,  unless  we  force  it  to  do  so  by  vary- 
ing from  the  accepted  pronunciation.  The  poet  who 
tries  to  link  together  uncongenial  words  like  these 
is  impaled  on  the  horns  of  a  dilemma :  either  the 
words  do  not  sound  alike  and  then  our  ears  are  cheated 
of  the  expectation  of  rime,  or  they  are  made  to  sound 
alike,  by  forcing  the  pronunciation  of  one  of  them, 
and  then  our  attention  is  distracted  by  this  departure 
from  the  normal  use  of  language.  In  either  case  the 
poet  has  violated  the  principle  of  Economy  of  Atten- 
tion. These  misguided  attempts  at  rime  may  be  toler- 
ated by  some  ears,  but  others  will  hold  that  a  rime 
which  is  only  tolerable  is  about  as  unsatisfactory  as  a 
tolerable  egg. 

Mortimer  Collins's  charming  lyric,  the  "  Ivory  Gate," 
is  marred  for  many  a  hearer  by  several  false  rimes. 
One  of  them  is  so  slight  a  departure  from  identity  of 
terminal  sound  that  it  may  not  arrest  the  attention 
as  it  falls  upon  the  ear :  — 


258  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Then  the  oars  of  Ithaca  dip  so 

Silently  into  the  sea 
That  they  wake  not  sad  Calypso, 

And  the  Hero  wanders  free  ; 
He  breasts  the  ocean  furrows 

At  war  with  the  words  of  fate, 
And  the  blue  tide's  low  susurrus 

Comes  up  to  the  Ivory  Gate. 

But  in  another  stanza  there  are  two  false  rimes, 
one  of  which  surely  calls  attention  to  itself  even  if  the 
other  was  covered  by  customary  slovenliness  of  pro- 
nunciation :  — 

Or  down  from  green  Helvellyn 

The  roar  of  streams  I  hear, 
And  the  lazy  sail  is  swelling 

To  the  winds  of  Windermere  : 
That  girl  with  the  rustic  bodice, 

'Mid  the  ferry's  laughing  freight, 
Is  as  fair  as  any  goddess 

Who  sweeps  thro'  the  Ivory  Gate. 

To  mate  furrows  and  susurrus,  bodice  and  god' 
dess  may  be  a  blemish  only,  but  to  link  together  Hel- 
vellyn  and  swelling  is  little  short  of  a  crime.  We  may 
be  willing  enough  to  overlook  the  blemishes  and  even 
to  pardon  the  crime,  for  the  sake  of  the  buoyancy  and 
brilliancy  of  the  little  lyric  as  a  whole.  But  the  pity  of 
it !  We  cannot  but  grieve  that  a  poem  which  came  so 
near  perfection  in  its  kind  should  fall  so  far  short  of 
it.  Even  in  Keats  and  in  Tennyson  we  stumble  on 
false  rimes,  more  frequently  in  Keats  than  in  Tenny- 
son ;  and  they  stand  out  as  needless  defects.  They 
may  be  only  spots  on  the  sun,  which  is  none  the  less 
glorious  ;  but  none  the  less  are  they  spots. 

In  English  a  pair  of  rimes  must  have  identity  of  the 
accented  vowel-sound  and  of  all  the  following  sounds 


POETIC  LICENSE  259 

and  at  the  same  time  it  must  have  different  sounds 
preceding  the  accented  vowel.  That  is  to  say,  a  word 
cannot  rime  with  itself,  even  if  the  meaning  is  wholly 
different.  In  French  and  in  Italian  verse  this  rule  does 
not  obtain  ;  but  in  English  our  ears  refuse  to  accept 
sense  and  innocence  as  a  fitly  mated  pair,  although 
Wordsworth  has  chosen  to  marry  them  in  a  couplet. 
Milton  linked  together  ruth  and  Ruth,  probably  misled 
by  Italian  precedents  ;  and  Tennyson  ventured  to  fol- 
low 

The  holly  by  the  cottage  eave 
with 

And  sadly  falls  our  Christmas  eve. 

To  many  English  ears  these  departures  from  the 
usual  practice  might  be  annoying,  in  that  they  would 
arrest  attention  to  themselves.  They  might  disappoint 
the  expectation  of  the  hearer;  and  they  would  be  the 
more  likely  to  do  this  the  closer  they  came  together,  — 
that  is,  the  more  emphatically  they  forced  themselves 
upon  our  notice.  But  they  would  probably  be  over- 
looked in  the  course  of  a  lyric  in  which  the  same  rim- 
ing sound  recurred  frequently,  as  in  a  ballade,  for  ex- 
ample, wherein  a  dozen  lines  rime  together.  In  Austin 
Dobson's  "  Ballade  of  the  Armada  "  we  can  discover, 
if  we  take  the  trouble,  that  he  has  back  ws  and  Bac- 
chus, tack  us  and  attack  us.  Yet  this  repetition  does 
not  call  attention  to  itself  as  it  occurs  in  different 
stanzas.  It  can  be  detected  by  the  eye,  of  course,  but 
the  ear  would  probably  fail  to  perceive  it :  — 

King  Phillip  has  vaunted  his  claims  ; 

He  had  sworn  for  a  year  he  would  sack  us  ; 
With  an  army  of  heathenish  names 

He  was  coming  to  fagot  and  stack  us  ; 


260  A  STUDY  OF  VERSIFICATION 

Like  the  thieves  of  the  sea  he  would  track  u£» 
And  shatter  our  ships  on  the  main  ; 

But  we  had  bold  Neptune  to  back  us,  — 
And  where  are  the  galleons  of  Spain  ? 

His  caracks  were  christened  of  dames 

To  the  kirtles  whereof  he  would  tack  us  ; 

With  his  saints  and  his  gilded  stern-frames, 
He  had  thought  like  an  egg-shell  to  crack  OS  J, 
Now  Howard  may  get  to  his  Flaccus, 

And  Drake  to  his  Devon  again, 

And  Hawkins  bowl  rubbers  to  Bacchus,  — 

For  where  are  the  galleons  of  Spain  ? 

Let  his  Majesty  hang  to  St.  James 

The  ax  that  he  whetted  to  hack  us; 
He  must  play  at  some  lustier  games 

Or  at  sea  he  can  hope  to  out-thwack  us  ; 

To  his  mines  of  Peru  he  would  pack  us 
To  tug  at  his  bullet  and  chain  ; 

Alas  !  that  his  Greatness  should  lack  us  !•— > 
But  where  are  the  galleons  of  Spain  ? 

Envoy 
GLORIANA  !  —  the  Don  may  attack  us 

Whenever  his  stomach  be  fain  ; 

He  must  reach  us  before  he  can  rack  us,  .  .   . 

And  where  are  the  galleons  of  Spain  ? 

"  Art  in  its  perfection  is  not  ostentatious  ;  it  lies  hie 
and  works  its  effect,  itself  unseen,"  so  Sir  Joshua  Reyv 
nolcls  asserted,  paraphrasing  Horace.  And  in  another 
of  his  suggestive  discourses  the  English  painter  ampli- 
fied the  same  thought  in  a  passage  which  is  as  appli- 
cable to  poetry  as  it  is  to  painting :  "  The  great  end 
of  the  art  is  to  strike  the  imagination.  The  painter 
therefore  is  to  make  no  ostentation  of  the  means  by 
which  this  is  done ;  the  spectator  is  only  to  feel  the  re- 
sult in  his  bosom.  An  inferior  artist  is  unwilling  that 


POETIC  LICENSE  261 

any  part  of  his  industry  should  be  lost  upon  the  spec- 
tator. He  takes  as  much  pains  to  discover,  as  the 
greater  artist  does  to  conceal,  the  marks  of  his  subor- 
dinate assiduity."  While  this  is  true  of  one  class  of  in- 
ferior artists,  there  is  another  class  who  are  deficient 
in  this  "subordinate  assiduity,"  and  who  have  not 
taken  the  trouble  to  master  the  means  whereby  they 
must  strike  the  imagination.  They  are  prone  to  assert 
a  claim  to  that  poetic  license  which  can  be  allowed  only 
to  the  greater  artists  and  which  the  greater  artists  very 
rarely  ask  us  to  excuse. 

In  the  Mexico  of  Montezuma,  when  the  natives  first 
caught  sight  of  the  cavalrymen  of  Cortez,  they  thought 
that  horse  and  man  were  one.  and  they  were  astonished 
when  they  chanced  to  behold  a  trooper  dismounting 
from  his  steed.  When  a  poet  soars  aloft  upon  Pegasus 
he  ought  to  be  one  with  his  winged  steed ;  he  may 
guide  it  at  will  as  it  soars  aloft ;  but  he  must  not  let 
the  spectator  see  him  dismount. 


APPENDIX 

A!    SUGGESTIONS    FOR    STUDY 

THE  student  who  comes  to  the  consideration  of  English 
versification  without  any  previous  acquaintance  with  its 
principles  will  do  well  to  begin  by  training  himself  to 
recognize  the  various  rhythms  and  meters.  He  should  take 
a  good  collection  of  poetry,  —  Palgrave's  Golden  Treasury, 
Stedman's  Victorian  or  American  Anthologies,  —  and  go 
through  its  pages  identifying  the  rhythm  and  the  meter  of 
the  successive  poems  until  he  has  attained  certainty  of  de- 
cision. At  the  same  time  he  can  investigate  the  various 
forma  of  the  stanza  employed  by  the  leading  British  and 
American  lyrists.  These  anthologies  contain  only  the  more 
popular  and  more  representative  poems  of  the  several  au- 
thors ;  and  the  student  will  do  well  to  select  two  or  three 
poets  and  to  examine  their  complete  works  to  see  if  he  can 
perceive  in  the  lyrics  omitted  from  the  anthologies  any 
technical  reason  for  the  comparative  failure  to  please  the 
public.  Sometimes  he  will  be  able  to  discover  that  an  un- 
due length  of  line  or  an  awkwardness  of  rhythm  or  a 
monotony  of  rime  may  be  responsible  for  the  lack  of  suc- 
cess. 

Then  as  he  becomes  more  familiar  with  the  technic  of 
versification  and  more  responsive  to  its  delicate  effects,  he 
may  consider  more  highly  specialized  collections  of  poetry, 
each  devoted  to  a  single  type :  Child's  English  and  Scot- 
tish Popular  Ballads,  Cambridge  Edition,  Main's  Treas- 
ury of  English  Sonnets,  Gosse's  English  Odes,  Gleeson 
White's  Ballads  and  Rondeaux,  Locker's  Lyra  Elegantia- 
rum.  Some  of  these  volumes  are  devoted  to  poems  in  the 
same  rigid  form  and  others  are  confined  to  lyrics  animated 
by  the  same  spirit. 


264  APPENDIX 

But  if  the  student  really  wishes  to  attain  an  intimate 
understanding  of  the  art  of  verse  he  must  attempt  verse- 
making  himself.  The  result  of  his  effort  may  be  negligi- 
ble, but  the  effort  will  be  its  own  reward.  He  may  begin 
very  modestly  by  taking  any  simple  passage  of  prose  — 
for  example,  a  newspaper  account  of  a  fire  or  of  any  other 
accident  —  and  rephrasing  this  in  a  succession  of  iambs, 
running  on  without  any  division  into  lines.  Another  pas- 
sage may  be  turned  into  trochees,  a  third  into  anapests  and 
a  fourth  into  dactyls.  The  iambs  and  the  trochees  ought  to 
be  achieved  with  no  great  difficulty ;  but  the  succession  of 
dactyls  and  of  anapests  will  not  be  so  easy.  When  a  fair 
facility  has  been  conquered  a  passage  may  be  chosen  from 
some  public  address  —  Webster's  Bunker  Hill  Oration 
or  Lincoln's  Gettysburg  Speech  —  to  be  recast  into  blank 
verse,  unrimed  iambic  pentameter.  Another  passage  might 
be  taken  from  a  novel  to  be  turned  into  trochaic  tetra- 
meter, the  meter  of  The  Song  of  Hiawatha. 

Then  the  student  may  undertake  a  task  calling  for  more 
or  less  command  of  form.  He  may  find  a  simple  story 
either  in  a  newspaper  or  excerpted  from  a  play  or  a  ro- 
mance ;  and  this  simple  story  he  may  turn  into  a  ballad. 
The  kind  of  ballad  which  he  decides  to  experiment  in 
ought  to  be  consonant  with  the  character  of  the  theme. 
That  is  to  say,  the  story  may  be  treated  with  the  naif  sim- 
plicity of  the  old  English  ballads,  such  as  Sir  Patrick 
Spens ;  it  may  be  told  with  the  narrative  leisureliness  of 
Longfellow's  Paul  Severe 's  Bide  ;  it  may  have  the  swift 
terseness  of  Scott's  Young  Lochinvar,  and  of  Macaulay's 
Battle  of  Ivry  ;  it  may  glow  with  the  dramatic  intensity 
of  Rudyard  Kipling's  Ballade  of  East  and  West ;  or  it 
may  be  cast  in  couplets  with  the  quaint  color  of  Whittier's 
Maud  Mutter,  or  with  the  picturesque  flavor  of  Austin 
Dobson's  Ballad  of  Beau  Brocade. 

Other  exercises  of  the  same  sort  will  easily  suggest 
themselves  to  the  student.  For  example,  there  would  be 
profit  in  taking  a  critical  statement  from  any  one  of  Ar- 


APPENDIX  265 

nold's  Essays  in  Criticism,  and  rewriting  this  in  heroic 
couplets  in  the  manner  of  Pope's  Essay  on  Criticism,  In 
like  manner  a  brilliant  paragraph  might  be  picked  out  of 
one  of  Lowell's  prose  essays,  —  that  on  Thoreau,  for  in- 
stance, —  and  this  might  be  rephrased  in  the  rapid  riming 
anapests  of  his  own  Fable  for  Critics. 

The  composition  of  what  the  French  term  bouts  rimes  is 
also  an  admirable  gymnastic.  This  requires  the  writing  of 
a  poem  to  a  set  of  rimes  arbitrarily  chosen  in  advance. 
The  student  may  open  a  book  anywhere  and  pick  out  any 
two  words ;  he  must  find  a  rime  to  each  of  these  words ; 
and  then  with  these  two  pairs  of  rimes  he  must  write  a 
quatrain,  as  best  he  can  and  on  any  theme  that  the  riming 
words  may  suggest  to  him.  Of  course  he  can  borrow  a 
commonplace  thought  to  fill  out  his  four  lines,  if  the  riming 
words  do  not  happen  to  be  suggestive.  After  a  little  prac- 
tice with  quatrains  and  octaves  in  bouts  rimes,  the  student 
may  venture  on  the  composition  of  a  sonnet  to  a  set  of  pre- 
scribed lines.  He  must  choose  six  words,  well  contrasted  in 
their  vowel-sounds.  Then  he  must  find  three  other  words  to 
rime  with  the  first  word  of  his  five  and  with  the  second ; 
—  these  will  give  him  the  rimes  for  his  octave,  a,  b,  b,  a, 
a,  b,  b,  a.  He  needs  only  one  rime  for  each  of  the  other 
three  of  his  original  five  words  ;  and  these  will  give  him 
the  sextet,  c,  d,  e,  c,  d,  e.  Here  again  it  is  quite  possible  that 
the  rimes  themselves  may  suggest  a  topic  for  the  sonnet. 

Owing  to  the  apparent  complexity  of  their  structure  the 
various  French  forms  are  very  useful  to  the  student  in  his 
search  for  technical  dexterity,  —  especially  the  rondeau  and 
ballade.  But  the  full  profit  of  the  grapple  with  their  com- 
plexity is  to  be  had  only  when  the  student  abides  by  all 
the  rules  of  the  form  and  denies  himself  any  privilege.  A 
charade  may  be  cast  in  the  form  of  a  ballade,  with  the 
first  syllable  in  the  first  octave,  the  second  syllable  in  the 
second  octave,  the  third  syllable  in  the  third  octave,  and 
the  whole  word  in  the  envoy. 

Parody  is  also  to  be  recommended,  or  at  least  deliberate 


266  APPENDIX 

imitation,  the  wilful  copying  of  the  method  of  the  chosen 
poet,  perhaps  with  a  playful  exaggeration  of  his  manner- 
isms. But  useful  as  may  be  the  conscious  imitation  of  sev- 
eral poets  having  sharply  diverging  principles,  it  is  not 
more  advantageous  than  translation.  A  piece  of  Latin  or 
French  prose  may  be  turned  into  English  verse,  or  a  for- 
eign poem  may  be  rendered  into  English  as  faithfully  as 
possible  with  due  respect  for  the  metrical  structure  of  the 
original. 

These  are  but  scattered  hints  to  be  improved  by  the  stu- 
dent himself,  or  by  the  instructor.  Just  as  the  college 
teacher  of  rhetoric  compels  his  pupils  to  attain  to  an  aver- 
age of  facility  in  composition  by  requiring  them  to  prepare 
daily  themes,  so  the  student  of  versification  must  supple 
his  muscles  by  attempting  all  sorts  of  metrical  exercises. 
But  these  exercises  are  intended  chiefly  to  increase  his  ap- 
preciation and  his  understanding  of  the  masterpieces  of  the 
major  poets ;  and  he  must  continue  the  constant  and  care- 
ful study  of  these  poets,  spying  out  their  metrical  secrets, 
and  never  failing  to  observe  their  rhythmical  variety. 

B!    BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    SUGGESTIONS 

A  classified  list  of  the  more  important  treatises  on  Eng- 
lish versification  will  be  found  in  Chapter  VII  of  Gayley 
and  Scott's  Introduction  to  the  Methods  and  Materials  of 
Literary  Criticism  (Boston :  Ginn  &  Co.,  1899)  ;  and  a 
chronological  list  of  books  and  articles  in  English  only  is 
presented  in  T.  S.  Omond's  English  Metrists  (Tunbridge 
Wells :  Pelton,  1903). 

The  two  most  elaborate  treatises  in  English  are  Guest's 
History  of  English  Rhythms,  new  edition  by  W.  W.  Skeat 
(London:  Bell,  1882),  and  Saintsbury's  History  of  Eng- 
lish Prosody,  in  three  volumes  (London  and  New  York  : 
Macmillan,  1906-1910).  To  be  noted  also  are  two  other  in- 
vestigations, Verrier's  Principes  de  la  Metrique  Anglaise, 
in  three  volumes  (Paris :  Welter,  1909-1910),  and  Jakob 
Schipper's  Englische  Metrik,  in  three  volumes  (Vienna, 


APPENDIX  267 

1881-1888).  A  single  volume  condensation  of  Schipper's 
book  was  issued  in  Vienna  in  1895,  and  the  author  pre- 
pared an  English  version  of  this  which  he  called  A  His- 
tory of  English  Versification  (Oxford :  Clarendon  Press, 
1910). 

There  are  shorter  text-books  better  fitted  for  the  begin- 
ner, written  from  varying  points  of  view.  The  names  of  a 
few  of  these  may  be  given  here,  although  an  exhaustive 
list  would  be  impossible  :  Gummere's  Handbook  of  Poetics 
(Boston:  Ginn,  1891)  ;  Corson's  Primer  of  English  Verse 
(Boston :  Ginn,  1892) ;  Parsons's  English  Versification 
(Boston :  Leach,  Shewell  and  Sanborn,  1894)  ;  Mayor's 
Chapters  on  English  Meter  (Cambridge  :  University  Press, 
1886) ;  Omond's  Study  of  Meter  (London :  Richards, 
1903) ;  Bright  and  Miller's  Elements  of  English  Versifi- 
cation (Boston :  Ginn,  1910),  and  Richardson's  Study  of 
English  Rimes  (Hanover,  N.  H.,  1909).  Alden's  English 
Verse  (New  York  :  Holt,  1903)  contains  a  well-arranged 
collection  of  examples.  John  Addington  Symonds's  papers 
on  Blank  Verse  are  now  available  in  a  separate  volume 
(New  York  :  Scribner,  1895). 

Poe's  three  papers  on  the  Rationale  of  Verse,  the 
Philosophy  of  Composition  and  the  Poetic  Principle  can 
be  found  in  any  edition  of  his  works.  The  influence  of  Poe 
is  obvious  in  Lanier's  Science  of  English  Verse  (New 
York :  Scribner,  1880),  just  as  the  influence  of  Lanier  is 
obvious  in  Dabney's  Musical  Basis  of  Verse  (New  York 
and  London:  Longmans.  1901).  Dr.  Holmes's  very  sug- 
gestive paper  on  the  Physiology  of  Versification  is  in* 
eluded  in  his  Pages  from  an  Old  Volume  of  Life  (Boston : 
Houghton,  Mifflin  and  Company,  1883).  In  my  own  Parts 
of  Speech,  Essays  on  English  (New  York  :  Scribner,  1901) 
will  be  found  An  Inquiry  as  to  Rime  and  a  paper  On  the 
Poetry  of  Place-Names. 


INDEX 


Addison,  Joseph,  241. 
Alcaics,  191. 

Aldrich,  Anna  Reeve,  97. 
Aldrich,  T.  B.,  92, 128, 138. 
Alexander,  Addison,  79. 
Alexander's  feast,  202. 
Alliteration,  81. 
Allowable  rimes,  54,  61, 245. 
Alphabetical  symbols,  for  pairs  of 

rimes,  109. 
Amiel,  6. 
Amphibrach,  16. 
Amphiinacer,  16. 
Anacreon,  40. 
Anapestic  dimeter,  148, 159;  hcpta- 

meter,  18, 114 ;  hexameter,  35 ;  oc- 

tameter,  35;    tetrameter,  26,  200, 

204,  205 ;  trimeter,  23, 148. 
Anapestic  meters,  substitution  in, 

20. 
Anapestic  rhythm,  32;  termination 

of  ,60. 

Annabel  Lee,  100, 121. 
Aristotle,  32. 
Arnold,  Matthew,  160,  184,  194, 196, 

198,  218,  265. 
•«  Art  of  Poetry,"  41,  49. 
"  Art  of  Verse,"  248. 
Assonance,  59,  61, 193. 
Atalanta  in  Calydon,  74. 

Balestier,  Wolcott,  106. 
Ballad,  20,  32;  meter,  227. 
Ballad  of  Beau  Brocade,  104,  264. 
Ballade,  160. 

Ballade  a  double  refrain,  167. 
Ballade  of  Dreamland,  169. 
Ballade  of  East  and  West,  264. 
Ballade  of  Old  Plays,  162. 
Ballade  of  Prose  and  Rime,  167. 
Ballade  of  Swimming,  164. 
Ballade  of  the  Armada,  259. 
Banville,  Theodore  de,  157,  161, 163, 

173,  248. 

Barbara  Frietchie,  103,  206. 
Barham,  Richard  H.,  64,  204, 205. 


Battle  of  Agincourt,  110. 

Battle -Hymn  of  the  Republic, 

108. 

Belle  of  the  Ball-room,  46. 
Bells,  The,  88. 
Bells  of  Lynn,  The,  180. 
Bells  of  Shandon,  58, 120. 
Bentley,  Richard,  219. 
Blake,  William,  196, 197. 
Blank  verse,  49, 225. 
"Blank  Verse,"   Symonds,  quota* 

tion  from,  200,  267. 
Boileau,  41,  49. 

Bradley,  Professor  A.  C.,  3,  7. 
Breathing,  rate  of,  36. 
Bride  ofAbydos,  27,  35. 
Bridge  of  Sighs,  45,  63. 
Bright,  John,  11,  267. 
Browning,  Elizabeth  B.,  53,  67,  68, 

115,  142. 
Browning,  Robert,  23,  24,  33,  89,  40, 

63,  56,  62,  65,  67,  70,  75,  76,  84,  86, 87, 

105,  115,  185,  186,  202,  224,  242,  243, 

247. 
Bryant,  William  Cullen,   109,  203, 

241. 

Bunner,  H.  C.,  69,  84, 148, 150, 162. 
Burns,  Robert,  119, 123,  206. 
Butler,  Samuel,  205. 
Byron,  Lord,  13,  17,  27,  35,  50,  64,  87, 

107,  108,  109,  111,  119, 129,  201,  202, 

206,  222,  256,  257. 

Campbell,  Thomas,  210. 

Canning,  George,  65, 153. 

Canterbury  Tales,  211. 

Carman,  Bliss,  86. 

Carpenter,  Professor  G.  R.,  198. 

Catullus,  91. 

Cavalier  Tunes,  23. 

Celtic  origin  of  assonance,  61. 

Century  of  Roundels,  152. 

"  Certain  Notes  of  Instruction  con- 
cerning the  Making  of  Verse," 
Gascoigne,  quotation  from,  80, 
244. 


270 


INDEX 


Chamber  over  the  Gate,  95. 

Chant-royal,  170. 

Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  112, 119, 160,  206, 

208,  210,  223. 
Child,  Francis  J.,  263. 
Child's  Daughter,  A,  82. 
Christabel,  207. 
Christmas  Carol,  120. 
Churchill,  Charles,  205. 
Classic  hexameter,  189. 
Coleridge,  Samuel  T.,  2,  16,  25,  63, 

84,  107,  109,  190,  207,  208,  235,  241, 

256. 

Collins,  Mortimer,  257. 
Colliteration,  86. 
Comedy  of  Errors,  60. 
Common  meter,  38. 
Concord  Hymn,  106, 109. 
Contractions,  254. 
Corson,  Professor  H.  T.,  79, 267. 
Couplet,  103,  125,  178,  200. 
Courtship  of  Miles  Standish,  The, 

187,  188. 

Cowper,  William,  168,  202,  222,  241. 
Crossing  the  Bar,  93,  97. 
Cumberland,  The,  122. 

Dabney,  J.  P.,  267. 

Dactylic  rhythms,  33;  termination 
of,  50. 

Dactylic  tetrameter,  24. 

Danny  Deever,  94. 

Dante,  247. 

Daudet,  Alphonse,  146. 

Deborah  and  Barak,  Song  of,  10. 

Defence  of  Guinevere,  105. 

Dekker,  Thomas,  235. 

Deserted  Village,  The,  221. 

Destruction  of  Sennacherib,  201. 

Dickens,  rhythm  in,  11. 

Dimeter,  17. 

"  Discourse  on  Epic  Poetry,"  Dry- 
den,  quotation  from,  73. 

•'Discourses  on  Painting,"  Rey- 
nolds,  quotation  from,  4. 

Distich,  178. 

Divlna  Commedia,  141,  247. 

pobson,  Austin,  17,  45, 46,  50,  75,  76, 
80,  104.  146,  147,  148,  150,  151,  152, 
154,  155,  156,  157,  158,  161,  167,  168, 
174, 248,  250,  259. 

Don  Juan,  64,  111. 

Dorchain,  Auguste,  248. 

Double  rime,  47,  50,  63,  76. 

Drake,  Joseph  K.,  13, 17. 


Drayton,  Michael,  38, 110. 

Dreams,  126. 

Dryden,  John,  32,  73,  202,  208,  218, 

214,  216,  226,  241. 
Duclaux,  Mine.  (A.  Mary  F.  Robin* 

son),  149. 
Dyer,  John,  39. 

Economy  of  Attention,  29, 41, 52, 193; 

251,  253,  254,  257. 
Eight-line  stanza,  110,  111. 
Elements  of  English  Versification, 

267. 

Eliot,  George,  192. 
Elizabethan  playwright-poets,  236. 
Emerson,  R.  W.,  41,  44,  53,  106,  109, 

126,  178. 

Enceladus,  116. 
Endymion,  223. 
England,  My  Mother,  183. 
English  hexameters,  187. 
English  verse,  225. 

English  versification,  only  feet  pos- 
sible in,  15. 
Envoy,  162. 
Epic  poems,  102. 
Epistle,    containing    the    Strangt 

Medical  Experience  of  Karshish, 

An,  243. 
Essay  on  Criticism,  71,  73,  78,  217, 

265. 

Etching,  179. 
Evangeline,  187, 188. 
Excelsior,  95, 113. 

Fable  for  Critics,  64,  203,  210, 268. 

Faery  Queen,  118. 

Familiar  verse,  168. 

Fatima,  124. 

Faustus,  229. 

Feet,  number  of,  35. 

Feminine  rime,  50. 

Field,  Eugene,  68. 

Fifine  at  the  Fair,  39. 

"Fit  of  Rime  against  Rime,  A,* 

Jonson,  quotation  from,  176. 
Fitzgerald,  Edward,  107,  109. 
Five-line  stanza,  113. 
Fletcher,  John,  235. 
Fly  not  yet,  120. 
Foot,  33. 

For  Annie,  26,  35,  67,  99. 
Ford,  John,  235. 
Foresters,  The,  116. 
Four  Winds,  182. 


INDEX 


271 


French,  terminal  rimes  In,  33;  225; 

Alexandrine,  40,  225;  dependence 

upon  rime,  177. 
French  verse,  248, 259. 
Friar  Bacon  and  Friar  Bungay, 

231. 
Future,  The,  194. 

Garden  of  Proserpine,  112. 

Gascoigne,  George,  80, 130,  244. 

Gautier,  Thdophile,  173,  250. 

Gay,  John,  125. 

Gilder,  R.  W.,  98, 127,  134. 

Goblet  of  Life,  The,  116,  120. 

God  of  Love,  170. 

God  Save  the  Xing,  40. 

Goethe,  27. 

Goldsmith,  Oliver,  203,  204,  210,  221, 

222. 

Gorboduc,  227,  228. 
Gosse,  Edmund,  144, 163, 173, 195, 263. 
Gould,  Baring,  17. 
Gower,  John,  60. 
Gramont,  195. 
Gray,  Thomas,  17,  117. 
Greek  dramatists,  227. 
Greek  hexameter,  225. 
Greek  poetry,  rhythm  in,  32,  40, 189, 

190  ;  lack  of  rime  in,  177. 
Greene,  Robert,  231. 
Gronyar  Hill,  39. 
Gummere,  Professor,  25,  29,  267. 

Harte,  Bret,  53, 114, 118. 

Haunted  House,  110. 

Hazlitt,  William,  25. 

Hebrew  lyrics,  lack  of  rime  in,  177. 

Hebrew  rhapsodists,  196. 

Henley,  William  E.,  147,  148,159, 179. 

Hero  and  Leander,  212. 

Heroic  couplet,  32,  200. 

Herrick,  Robert,  111,  126. 

Heywood,  Thomas,  235. 

Hiawatha,  Song  of ,  36,  37, 186,  264. 

His  Majesty's  Escape,  213. 

Hodgson,  Shadworth  H.,225. 

Holmes,  Oliver  "Wendell,  36,  37,  38, 

39,  40,  57,  70,  119,  122,  187,  188,  207, 

210. 

Homer,  40. 

Homeric  hexameter,  191. 
Hood,  Tom,  1,  13,  17, 33,45,  53,  63, 67, 

110,  119,  122,  246. 
Hooker,  Brian,  242. 
Horace,  150, 260. 


Rouse  of  Fame,  The,  206. 

Hovey,  Richard,  36,  86. 

How  They  Brought  the  Good  Newt 

from  Ghent  to  Aix,  202. 
Hugo,  Victor,  173. 
Hunt,  Leigh,  7,  102,  153,  210,  219,  220, 

222. 
Hymns,  32. 

Iambic  heptameter,  17,  22,  34,  38, 
227;  hexameter,  17,  38;  pentame- 
ter, 17,  18,  37,  39,  42,  129,  *33,  200, 
208,  209,  210,  211,  223,  224;  tetra- 
meter, 17,  159,  186,  200,  205,  206. 
207 ;  trimeter,  186. 

Iambic  meters,  substitution  in,  20. 

Iambic  rhythms,  frequency  in  Eng- 
lish verse,  31,  32 ;  termination,  50. 

Idyllic  poems,  102. 

It  Penseroso,  206. 

Iliad,  Pope's  translation,  220. 

Imitations  of  Horace,  218. 

In  Memoriam,  109,  111,  117. 

In  Town,  174. 

In  the  Metidja,  70. 

Ingoldsby  Legends,  64,  204. 

Inscription  for  a  Well  in  Memory 
of  the  Martyrs  of  the  War,  126. 

Insertion  of  extra  short  syllable, 
24. 

Internal  rime,  66. 

"  Introduction  to  Milton's  Son- 
nets," Pattison,  quotations  from, 
125. 

Italian  sonnet,  133, 138. 

Italian  verse,  259. 

Ivory  Gate,  The,  257. 

Ivry,  94,  264. 

Jackdaw  of  ftheims,  The,  204. 
Jocosa  Lyra,  76. 
Johnson,  Samuel,  222,  237,  238. 
Jonson,  Ben,  55,  176,  209,  213, 235. 

Kalevala,  the  Finnish,  186. 

Keats,  John,  53,  119, 131, 139,  210,222, 

223,  241,  242,  258. 
King  Henry  of  Navarre,  94. 
King  James,  31,  47,  48,  196. 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  18,  40,  53,  66,  94, 

106,  110,  195,  196. 

La  Farge,  John,  2. 

Lady  Clara  Vere  de  Vere,  94. 

Lady  of  Shalott,  The,  95, 119. 


872 


INDEX 


Lady  of  the  Lake,  The,  206. 
Lamb,  Charles,  181,  183. 
Landor,  W.  S.,  98,  126,  128,  178. 
Lang,  Andrew,  88,  135,  152, 159   161, 

162,  170. 

Lanier,  Sidney,  74,  87,  267. 
Last  Leaf,  Tlie,  122. 
Last  Oracle,  120. 
Latin  dramatists,  227. 
Latin  hexameter,  40. 
Latin   lyrics,   absence  of  rime  in, 

177. 
Latin  rhythm  the  result  of  quantity, 

189. 

Lemaitre,  Jules,  170. 
Lewis  Carroll,  65. 
Life  and  Death  of  Jason,  224. 
Limerick,  144. 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  264. 
Locker-Lampson,  Frederick,  67,  247. 
Long  syllable,  18,  28,  189. 
Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth,  13, 

17,  18,  36,  39,  40,  77,  78,  95,  104,  113, 

116,  120,  121,  122,  139,  140,  179, 180, 

183,  186,  187,  188,  190. 
Lope  de  Vega,  154. 
Lost  Love,  68. 

Lounsbury,  Professor  T.  R.,  172. 
Love  among  the  Ruins,  75,  76. 
Love  and  Age,  46. 
Love's  Labor 's  Lost,  212. 
Love's  Nocturn,  67,  123. 
Lowell,  James  Russell,  10,  50,  62,  64, 

119,  127,  137,  140,  173,  203,  204,  206, 

209,  210,  216,  237,  246,  248. 
Lliders,  Charles  Henry,  182. 
Lyric  poetry,  102. 

Macaulay,  T.  B.,  34,  38,  46,  94. 

Mahoney,  Francis,  120. 

Maidenhood,  104. 

Malayan  pantoum,  173. 

Marching  Along,  23. 

Marlowe,  Christopher,  209,  212,  228, 

229,  230,  231,  233. 
Marmion,  36,  37,  206. 
Marseillaise,  The,  40. 
Marston,  John,  235. 
Masculine  rime,  50. 
Massinger,  Philip,  235. 
Match,  A,  149. 
Maud  Mutter,  103,  206,  264- 
May  Queen,  96. 
Mayor,  Professor,  6. 
McAndrews'  Hymn,  06. 


McFingal,  20£ 

Men  and  Women,  185. 

Merchantmen,  The,  110. 

Meredith,  George,  177. 

Meter,  31,  33. 

Miller,  Joaquin,  68. 

Milton,  John,  16,  32,  42,  43,  44,  78,  86, 

129,  133,  139,  190,  191,  206,  230,  236, 

237,  238,  239,  240,  241,  247,  249,  264, 

255,  259. 

Miss  Blanche  Says,  118. 
Mitchell,  Weir,  186. 
Monk's  Tale,  112. 
Monogamous  rimes,  71. 
Monosyllables,  78. 
Monotony,  avoided  by  substitutions 

and  suppressions,  32. 
Moore,  Thomas,  117, 120. 
Morris,  William,  105,  210,  224. 
"Musical  Basis  of  Verse,"  267. 

Narrative  poems,  102. 
Nash,  Thomas,  192. 
Nature,  Longfellow,  138. 
"  Nature  and  Elements  of  Poetry, 
The,"  Stedman,  quotation  from, 8. 
Newman,  Cardinal,  185. 
Nicholas  Nickleby,  11. 
Nine-line  stanza,  119. 
Norton,  Caroline  E.  S.,  227. 
Nursery-rimes,  20,  39,  60. 

O  Captain  !  My  Captain,  197,  255. 

Octave,  131. 

Ode,  to  Duty,  253. 

Odyssey,  The,  135. 

Old  Clock  on  the  Stairs,  95. 

Omissions,  21. 

Omond,T.  S.,  31,  266,  267. 

On  a  Distant  Prospect  of  Eton  Cot- 

lege,  117. 
On  a  Fan,  45. 
On  Himself,  126. 
"On  Translating  Homer,"  Arnold, 

quotation  from,  218. 
On   the  Late  Massacres  in  Pied* 

mont,  133. 

One,  Two,  Three,  69. 
One  Word  More,  185, 186,  247. 
Oriana,  95. 
"Oxford     Lectures     on    Poetry," 

Bradley,  quotation  from,  3. 

Palamon  and  Arcite,  215. 
Pantoum,  173. 


INDEX 


273 


Parable,  97. 

Paradise  Lost,  238,  247,  252. 

Parnassians,  French,  6. 

Pattison,  Mark,  125. 

Paul  Revere' 's  Ride,  264. 

Payne,  John,  157,  170. 

Peacock,  Thomas  Love,  46. 

Peele,  George,  227. 

Pericles,  60. 

Pessimist  and  Optimist,  128. 

Petrarchan  sonnet,  131, 141 

"  Philosophy  of  Composition,"  Poe, 

quotation  from,  95. 
"  Physiology      of     Versification," 

Holmes,  quotation  from,  36,  267. 
Plain    Language    from    Truthful 

James,  114. 
"  Plea  for  Certain  Exotic  Forms  of 

Verse,"   Gosse,  quotation   from, 

144,  173. 
Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  2,  26,  35,  50, 53,  58, 

66,  67,  82,  83,  84,  87,  95,  96,  99,  119, 

121. 

Poetic  License,  244, 251. 
Polyolbion,  38. 
Polysyllable,  80. 
Pope,  Alexander,  2,  32,  43,  71,  73,  78, 

88,  125,  208,  209,  210,  213,  216,  217, 

218,  219,  220,  221,  222,  226. 
Poplar  field,  The,  202. 
Power  of  Short  Words,  79. 
Praed,  W.  M.,  46, 153. 
Prelude,  122. 
Princess,  85, 181. 
Prior,  Matthew,  40,  256. 
Prisoner  of  Chillon,  The,  206. 
Prodigals,  The,  161. 
Progress  of  Art,  222. 
Prologue,  60. 
Psalm  of  Life,  18. 
Psalm  of  the  Waters,  186. 

Quantity,  14, 189. 

Quatrain,  67, 106,  111,  126, 144. 

Rape  of  the  Lock,  The,  220. 
"  Rationale  of  Verse,"  Poe,  26,  267. 
Raven,  95,  97. 
Ready  for  the  Ride,  150. 
Recessional,  94. 

Recurrence    of    the    same    vowel- 
sound,  87. 
Kef  rain,  94, 167. 
Repetition  of  sound,  55. 
Rests,  23. 


Retaliation,  203. 

Revolutionary  Relic^  A,  80. 

Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  2, 4,  83,  260. 

Rhythm,  9, 31, 189 ;  carried  over  from 
one  line  to  the  next,  24. 

Richard  II,  233. 

Riley,  James  Whitcomb,  89,  93,  95 

Rime  49;  in  English,  denned  as 
identity  of  vowel-sound,  49 ;  iden- 
tity of,  74. 

Rime  less  stanzas,  176. 

Rimeless  verse,  33. 

Romeo  and  Juliet,  233. 

Rondeau,  150,  153. 

Rondel,  150. 

Rose-Leaves,  147, 148. 

Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel,  58,  67,  123, 
137,  142. 

Roundel,  152. 

Rubaiyat  of  Omar  Khayyam,  107. 

"Rules  for  writing  verse,"  King 
James,  31. 

"  Rules  of  Rhyme,  The,"  Hood,  quo- 
tation from,  1, 246. 

Sackville,  George,  227. 
Saga  of  King  Olaf,  The,  180. 
Saintsbury,  Professor  G.  E  ,  233, 240, 

266. 

Sapphics,  191. 
Scansion,  17. 
Schiller,  190. 

Scorn  not  the  Sonnet,  136. 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  25,  34,  36,  38,  3% 

47,  58,  60,  66,  206,  208,  220,  264. 
Seaweed,  77,  122. 
Seneca,  227. 
Serenade,  67. 

Serenade  at  the  Villa,  A,  115. 
Sestet,  131. 
Sestina,  195. 

Sestina  of  the  Tramp  Royal,  196. 
Seven-line  stanza,  123 
Shakspere,  William,  18, 19,  32, 41, 60, 

79,  80,  84, 85,  88,  90, 129,  130, 139, 209, 

212,  230,  232,  233,  234,  235,  236,  240, 

241. 

Shaksperlan  sonnet,  131. 
Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  34,  38,  107, 

109,  114,  210,  222,  224. 
Shepherd's  Calendar,  211. 
Sherman,  98. 
Shirley,  James,  235. 
Short  syllables,  18,  28, 189. 
Sibilants,  89. 


274 


INDEX 


Single  rime,  60,  75. 

Sisters,  95. 

Six- line  stanza,  121. 

Skylark,  114. 

Sony  without  a  Sibilant,  89. 

Sonnet,  32,  125,  129. 

Sonnet,  The,  134. 

Sonnet-sequences,  142. 

Bordello,  234. 

Sound  and  sense,  74. 

Southey,  Robert,  186,  198. 

Spanish  Gipsy,  The,  192. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  28,  41. 

Spens,  Sir  Patrick,  20. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  40,  118, 161,  209, 

211. 

Spenserian  stanza,  118. 
Spondee,  16. 
Stanza,  102,  257. 
Stanzas  written  on  the  Boad  from 

Florence  to  Pisa,  108. 
Statue  and  the  Bust,  105. 
Stedman,   Edmund   0.,  8,   91,  198, 

263. 
Stevenson,   Robert   Louis,  8,    100, 

152. 

Story  of  Rimini,  222. 
Strayed  Reveler,  184, 196, 198. 
"  Study    of    Meter,    A,"    Omond, 

quotation  from,  31,  267. 
»' Style  in  Literature,"  Stevenson, 

quotation  from,  101. 
Sub  Rosa,  155. 
Substitution,  19,  28,  204. 
Suppressions,  24.  28. 
Surrey,   Henry   Howard,   Earl    of, 

227. 
Swinburne,  Algernon  C.,  32,  35,  40, 

55,  66,  68,  74,  76,  82,  83,  84,  112,  114, 

120,  123,  149,  152,  153,   161,  164,  166, 

167,  169,  191,  195,  210,  224. 
Symonds,  John  Addington,  182, 200, 

226,  230,  234,  235,  236,  239. 

Tarn  o'  Shanter,  206. 

Tears  and  Laughter,  126. 

Tears,  Idle  Tears,  181. 

Tempest,  The,2&L. 

Ten-line  stanza,  117. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  Lord,  23,  24,  25, 
40,  43,  53,  54,  57,  83, 84,  85,  88,  90,  91, 
93,  95,  97,  106,  109,  111,  115,  117,  119, 
124,  139,  181,  183,  190,  191,  242,  258, 
259. 

Terminal  rimes,  33. 


Terminal  trochee,  18. 
Termination,  natural,  of  rhythm^ 

50. 

Thalaba,  186, 198. 
Thanatopsis,  242. 
Theocritus,  159. 
Ttkere,  little  girl,  don't  cry,  95. 
Thirteen-line  stanza,  120. 
Thomson,  James,  241. 
Time  I've  lost  in  wooing,  The,  117. 
To  a  Mouse,  123. 
To  a  Rose,  113. 
To  a  Waterfowl,  109. 
To  an  Old  Danish  Sony-Book,  179. 
To  my  mere  English  Censure,  213. 
To  Violets,  111. 
To   Walt    Whitman  in  America, 

123. 

Toccata  of  GaluppVs,  A,  105. 
Tone-Color,  73. 
Treble  rimes,  47,  50,  63. 
Trench,  Richard  C.,  139. 
Trente-six  Ballades  Joyeuses,  161. 
Trimeter,  17,  18,  186. 
Triolet,  146. 
Triolet-sequences,  146. 
Triplet,  104,  111,  126. 
Tristram  of  Lyonesse,  224. 
Trochaic  meters,  pauses  in,  21. 
Trochaic  octameter,  115 ;  tetrameter, 

17, 105,  148;  trimeter,  17. 
Trochaic  rhythm,  32. 
Trochaic  rhythms,  32;  termination 

of,  50. 

Trumbull,  John,  205. 
Truth  about  Horace,  68. 
"Twelve    Good    Rules,"    Dobson, 

quoted,  168. 

Twenty-four-line  stan/a,  120. 
Tunllght  on  Tweed,  88. 
Two  Voices,  106. 

Ulalume,  82,  100,  119. 
Unexpected  rimes,  63. 
IJnrimed  dactylic  trimeter,  186. 
Unrimed  hexameter,  188. 
Unseen  Spirits,  121. 

Variation  of  feet,  19. 
Vers  de  soci^te,  108, 169. 
Versification  of  the  Greeks  and  Bo- 
mans,  16. 

Village  Blacksmith,  78,  121. 
Villanelle,  157. 
Villon,  157, 160. 


INDEX 


275 


Voice  of  the  Sea,  92. 
Voiture,  147, 154, 157. 
Vowel,  identity  of  the,  62. 

Wagner,  81. 

Walker's  Riming  Dictionary,  250. 

Waller,  Edmund,  113,  209,  213,  214, 

216. 

Wanderer,  151. 
Watson,  William,  183. 
Webster,  Daniel,  204. 
Webster,  John,  235,  236. 
«'  What  is  Poetry? ' '  Hunt,  quotation 

from,  102. 
What  is  the  German  Fatherland  ? 

40. 
When  Lilacs  last  in  the  Dooryard 

£loom'd,  197, 199. 


When  the  Frost  is  on  the  Punkin, 

89. 

White,  Gleeson,  263. 
White  Doe,  The,  206. 
Whitman,  Walt,  40,  50,  94,  196,  199, 

255. 
Whittier,  John  Greenleaf ,  63, 57,  60, 

103,  127,  206. 

Willis,  Nathaniel  P.,  121. 
Wordsworth,  William,  2,  25,  43,  57, 

68,   136,  139,  206,  241,  242,  253,  254, 

259. 
Written  on  the  First  Leaf  of  an  AL* 

bum,,  126. 
Wyatt,  Thomas,  153. 

Yankee  Doodle,  40. 
Young  Lockinvar,  264. 


DATE  DUE 


PftlNTKO  IN  U.»  A. 


A     000  573  959     4 


